Brian Bradley
WC Monitor
10/9/2015
The Department of Energy has issued a revised funding direction that enables Portsmouth Site contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth to postpone up to 500 previously announced layoffs at least until Congress passes its final fiscal 2016 appropriations bill, after which DOE is expected to review the legislative language and make a final funding decision for the project, Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth Site Project Director Dennis Carr said in an Oct. 7 memo to employees. Congress on Oct. 1 passed a continuing resolution that funds the federal government at fiscal 2015 levels through Dec. 11 and includes an anomaly to give DOE the flexibility through its Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund to prevent layoffs Fluor-BWXT announced in August. The contractor had said a budget shortfall of up to $81 million for the project in fiscal 2016 could force it this fall to lay off up to 36 percent of its roughly 1,400 employees working on D&D at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, in Piketon, Ohio.
“Until [the passage of a final fiscal 2016 appropriations bill], we must press forward with planning for the reductions in force in the event the final appropriation for our project does not provide DOE the needed funds to avoid impacts to our project,” Carr wrote. “We must all press forward on the project with guarded optimism and focus on safely advancing the project, especially on achieving our collective goal of attaining a Cold and Dark status in X-326 by June of 2017.” Built in 1956 at a cost of $154.2 million, the originally 2.5-million-square-foot X-326 Process Building enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons and, later, nuclear reactors.
“I ask that you stay focused on the task in front of you, whether that be working on the cell floor, loading shipments, providing technical support or doing the routine tasks we do each day,” the memo states. “I appreciate all of your support, and the support of DOE, our Ohio Congressional Delegation and the countless members of our local communities who have stepped up to lend assistance to our project.”
Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz during a Tuesday hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee declined to answer a question from Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R) on whether DOE would request “adequate funding” for cleanup in fiscal 2017, after the senator said Portsmouth cleanup work was “underfunded” by $80 million in fiscal 2015. “I cannot discuss the FY ’17 budget at this stage, that’s clear,” Moniz said. “We are trying to get adequate funding for all of our cleanup activities, and right now it’s hard to fit everything into the budget box. … I cannot discuss the FY ’17 budget until we’ve gone through all the trade-offs and working with, as you know very well, [the White House’s Office of Management and Budget] on this.” The White House is expected to release its fiscal 2017 budget request in February. The Senate Appropriations Committee in its May markup of the fiscal 2016 energy appropriations bill matched DOE’s fiscal 2016 budget request of $165.4 million in funding for Portsmouth D&D work, a cut of approximately $49 million from fiscal 2015-enacted levels.
Ohio Delegation Addresses American Centrifuge Funding Cut
Employees at the American Centrifuge Plant (ACP) in Piketon, however, still appear subject to layoffs. Project contractor Centrus in September confirmed that DOE would no longer provide funding for the program. ACP is an advanced uranium enrichment facility intended to produce low-enriched uranium. All ACP operations will be limited to development activities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee at a cost of $35 million per year. Centrus employs about 300 technical and other staff in Piketon. “I think those … workers deserve to know what’s going on,” Portman told Moniz during the hearing. “But also our country deserves to know what’s going on. We’re not going to have the ability to say that we can enrich uranium in this country with a domestic source. I think that’s frightening.”
But Moniz clarified that DOE is not scrapping the ACP technology, which some people had assumed after September’s layoff announcement. “The issue is that for the last two years operating the pilot facility without spinning the pilot machines, we have learned things of an operational nature. We were able to resolve a technical issue with the machines. But two things led to that. And I have to say, unfortunate, I completely agree, for the site decision. Namely, No. 1 is that scrubbing really hard on the need for enriched uranium using American-origin technology, we were able to extend the timeframe for that very, very dramatically,” Moniz said. “Secondly, the technical judgment made is that continuing to spin the machines will not give us any more technical knowledge on the technology that we will preserve. We are not pulling the plug. But right now, it’s hard to justify taxpayers’ $50 million for something that we think will have little to no technical” benefit.
The department plans to eventually release a request for information to again “build out” ACP, which requires 1,400 centrifuges to be viable, DOE Associate Deputy Secretary John MacWilliams said on Wednesday during a House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing. DOE plans to “stand down” the 120 existing test centrifuges in Piketon, because they have successfully served the purpose of proving the technology, have nearly reached the end of their useful service lives, and would not contribute to the 1,400 required centrifuges, MacWilliams said. While ACP is not being put into cold standby, MacWilliams said DOE will need five to seven years to re-establish the technology. Shutting the current centrifuges down will cost $100 million to $150 million, a large portion of which Centrus will cover, he said.
