Fluor Idaho said Thursday it is offering a “targeted voluntary separation program” for up to 50 employees at the Idaho National Laboratory cleanup project.
Workers who exercise this option by Jan. 14 would leave the company on Feb. 18. The Department of Energy contractor said personnel at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) “are excluded from this action as work at AMWTP will continue into 2019.”
“There will be no follow-on involuntary reduction tied to this action,” Fluor Idaho said, adding this is the first such workforce reduction since it took over the environmental remediation contract on June 1, 2016. “The proposed action is not driven by funding or headcount. Offering a targeted voluntary separation program will enable us to make necessary skill realignments within several work groups.”
The move primarily targets managers or salaried employees, company spokesman Erik Simpson said in a Friday email. “We believe this workforce realignment will allow us to direct more resources toward other aspects of treatment of waste, as well as achieving operating efficiencies in other areas of the Idaho Cleanup Project,” he said.
Fluor Idaho has a $1.5 billion contract, which runs through May 2021. Its operations include treating and shipping transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. It also covers handling of spent nuclear fuel, and high-level radioactive waste, as well as starting operation of the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit. Its subcontractors on the Idaho project are CH2M, Waste Control Specialists, and North Wind Group, which purchased fellow Idaho subcontractor Portage in early 2017.
Fluor Idaho employs roughly 1,600 people, with about 650 at AMWTP. The Energy Department announced Dec. 5 it would close the plant in mid-to-late 2019 after it finishes treating and shipping about 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste from INL. The sludge waste has been buried for years at the Idaho site, after being shipped from the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado.
The Energy Department considered keeping AMWTP open to treat waste from other sites, but after conducting a study determined there was not a sufficiently strong long-term business case. Fluor Idaho is expected to discuss the upcoming shutdown on Jan. 15 with local officials.
