Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
5/8/2015
The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office is having a tough time filling 22 new full-time positions, many of them in safety and oversight, that were created in response to last year’s incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, DOE officials said last week. “I have the highest incentive authority right now for the workforce that we are hiring. We are maxing them out, and they still are coming back and saying no,” CBFO Manager Joe Franco said last week at a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board public hearing in Carlsbad, N.M. CBFO is still looking to fill 18 positions—while it has hired nine new personnel, since starting the search five have left. Franco himself is among those leaving , as he plans take a senior position at DOE’s Richland Operations Office, and the CBFO Manager position is currently posted,
‘It’s Been Difficult to Attract People Willing to Come to this Area’
The posts have been hard to fill, in part, because of Carlsbad’s remote location, as well as the fact that the current oil boom in southeastern New Mexico has driven up housing and hotel prices. “We haven’t been able to hire people quickly enough. It’s been difficult to attract people willing to come to this area. Frankly that’s been a bit of a problem,” DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Safety, Security and Quality Programs Jim Hutton said at the hearing. Franco said some positions have been turned down by numerous candidates. “The postings are going out as fast as they can, but when you have four turndowns, even at a grade-14 level, that is huge,” Franco said.
The additional positions were added after ineffective oversight from the DOE Carlsbad office was cited as a contributing factor in the February, 2014, truck fire and radiological release at WIPP. “Carlsbad didn’t have the resources that they needed, quite frankly, to do an effective oversight job,” acting DOE cleanup chief Mark Whitney said at last week’s meeting. “So, shortly after I came on last summer, we authorized an additional 22 folks to work at CBFO, many of those in safety and oversight functions, including very senior folks in the organization, also including facility representatives, and nuclear safety individuals.”
As it still looks to fill those positions, DOE has been supplementing CBFO staff with Office of Environmental Management headquarters staff, staff from other sites and subcontractor support, Hutton said. “That’s not a good long-term solution, but it’s certainly necessary right now,” he said.
Additional Employees Part of CBFO Reorganization
The new posts are part of a major reorganization of CBFO following the WIPP events that aims to boost the number of DOE employees at the site from 50 plus to about 77, Franco said. The reorganization created a separate oversight division in addition to the production division. “Carlsbad also looked at their organization and realized that not only was it structured in a way that did not clearly delineate the roles and the responsibilities and the oversight, but also there were individuals within the organization that were doing both roles,” Whitney said. While emphasizing the need to fill vacant slots at CBFO, DOE officials also praised the new employees that have been brought in so far. DOE has been “really fortunate,” Franco said. “We have brought in a lot of good people for the nuclear safety side of the house and the oversight.”
