A coalition of industry, labor, and community groups are asking Congress to fund a one-time $7.25 billion increase in funding for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management.
The COVID-19-related funding request arrived Friday, while officials with the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee confirmed they will initiate the first phase of an incremental return to work on Monday.
Sparked by the sharp economic downturn accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA); the Energy, Technology, and Environmental Business Association (ETEBA); North America’s Building Trades Unions; and Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO, asked for the money Friday in a letter to the Republican and Democrat leadership in the House and Senate. The message was also signed by leaders of a slew of local and regional groups located around DOE cleanup facilities.
The funding is not currently included in a $3 trillion economic relief package being considered by the House of Representatives, ECA Executive Director Seth Kirshenberg said in a Friday email.
The money, which could be spent within five years, will help national security, be good for the environment, prop up many small businesses, and help combat the financial hard times associated with the national health crisis, the groups said in the letter. It would be in addition to Environmental Management’s normal appropriation from Congress, which amounted to nearly $7.5 billion in the current fiscal 2020. The Trump administration has proposed about $6.2 billion for fiscal 2021, which begins on Oct. 1.
The DOE cleanup office “has at least $7.2 billion of projects that could be completed over the next three to five years,” the groups stated.
These projects include dewatering and characterization of the K-Basin reactor areas at the Hanford Site in Washington state, speeding up the hoisting capability for a new utility shaft underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, and remediating an experimental gas-cooled reactor at the Oak Ridge Site, the letter says.
There is a precedent for such a dramatic move, according to the organization. They cited the $6 billion for nuclear cleanup included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Meanwhile, DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management will start Phase 1 of a gradual return to normal staffing on Monday.
“Most office workers will remain on telework, but senior leaders who have been on telework will return to the office,” a DOE spokesman said by email Friday. The managers returning to mostly office work will not require as much personal protective equipment as front-line cleanup workers added in future phases, DOE said.
Social distancing protocols will be in place for those returning to work. Only critical mission essential travel is authorized during this phase, which is the first of a three-phase process. The spokesman did not say how many managers might be affected by the first phase.
Oak Ridge is pursuing a deliberative process in keeping with guidance issued by the Energy Department, the spokesman said.
Hanford Confirms Four COVID-19 Cases
Separately, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Hanford Site rose to four as of Wednesday, one more than a week ago.
Most of the four infected individuals have “not been on site for several weeks,” DOE Hanford Site Manager Brian Vance said in a post on Facebook.
The employee reported a positive test on Tuesday, a DOE spokesperson said in a Thursday email. The official declined to release any further details.
Vance said on-site staffing at the former plutonium production complex will remain at dramatically reduced levels through next week. The vast majority of Hanford’s roughly 11,000 employees have been either teleworking or receiving paid leave since the site entered essential mission critical operations on March 24.
Also Wednesday, the Energy Department said all 13 employees at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina known to have been infected by novel coronavirus 2019 “have made a full recovery.”
Like Hanford, most of Savannah River’s 11,000 federal and contract workers are either teleworking or receiving paid leave. Both sites say planning continues for a gradual return to more on-site staffing, with modifications made to increase hand washing, increase physical distancing, and reduce face-to-face contact on the jobsite.
Neither site, nor the Office of Environmental Management, have publicly revealed actual dates when large number of staffers will start returning inside the fence.
There are currently 23 confirmed cases of COVID-19 total around the 16 nuclear cleanup sites overseen by Environmental Management. Anecdotal evidence suggests most have recovered and returned to work – at least remotely.
Hanford Contractors Tout Workplace Modifications
Top executives for contractors at the Hanford Site don’t know when staffing will return to normal, but said last week changes are being made to protect employee health.
Only 20% to 25% of employees have been allowed inside the fence since March 24. That was the date the Energy Department shifted Hanford to minimum mission essential operations to reduce the spread of the virus.
In a May 7 memo to employees, Washington River Protection Solutions President and CEO John Eschenberg said personnel who have either been telecommuting or receiving paid leave will spot many changes when they return to the jobsite.
The “visible changes” include reconfiguring WRPS workspaces, along with lunch and conference rooms, to ensure physical distancing; installing clear barriers at face-to-face interaction areas; and placing floor markings at 6-foot increments, said Eschenberg, whose venture oversees 56 million gallons of underground tank waste.
Messages to Hanford workers, some very similar to the one from WRPS, were also posted online on May 7 by executives at three other Hanford vendors – Bechtel National, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation, and Mission Support Alliance. The messages were released the day that Vance announced the site would remain at significantly reduced operations at least through the end of this week.
None of them alluded to any specific timelines.
CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation President and CEO Ty Blackford said his company has been talking with DOE, other site contractors, and union officers about “what remobilization could look like.”
The London Guardian newspaper reported recently that Hanford workers have expressed concerns regarding whether they will be properly protected from spread of the coronavirus when they return to the job.
There have been mixed feelings and some “dread” expressed by workers, Tom Carpenter, executive director of the Hanford Challenge citizen group, said by email Thursday. The Hanford Atomic Metals Trade Council, an umbrella group of unions at the site, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
