Limited operations will remain in place for at least another week at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Manager Brian Vance announced Wednesday.
The announcement came four days after the second confirmed case of viral infection at the nuclear cleanup site, an employee of support services provider Mission Support Alliance. The first was disclosed April 16 by tank waste manager Washington River Protection Solutions.
Most of Hanford’s usual 11,000-member federal-contractor workforce will continue to telecommute or, if unable do that, collect paid leave for the workweek starting Monday, Vance stated. No more than 20% of Hanford employees are physically on-site these days, mostly manning fire crews, providing safety and environmental monitoring, or performing janitorial services, sources say.
“This situation affects us all differently” by being forced to stay at home, Ty Blackford, president and CEO of Hanford cleanup prime CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation, said in a Thursday memo to employees. “Remember what is really important in life, and continue to take care of yourselves and your family members.”
Unlike most of the other 16 remediation projects overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Hanford is reviewing its staffing status weekly. Others are largely at bare-bones staffing until further notice.
In an April 18 memo to employees of Mission Support Alliance, President Bob Wilkinson and Chief Operating Officer Amy Basche said they recently learned “a member of the MSA family” who worked at firehouse building 609 A had tested positive for the novel coronavirus 2019. The employee was last at Hanford on April 9.
Contractors, like DOE, typically decline to release details on infected employees. The response to the Hanford cases is coordinated by the regional Benton-Franklin Health District, which attempts to ascertain who the infected individuals might have come in contact with.
The health district’s website appears to have no separate Hanford Site data. It said there had been 763 cases and 42 COVID-19 deaths in Benton and Franklin counties as of Thursday. A health district representative could not immediately be reached by telephone.
As of mid-week, Office of Environmental Management sites reported at least 15 cases of COVID-19.
Nationally, the Washington Post reported Friday that total deaths from COVID-19 now exceed 50,000. The rising toll comes less than three months after the first case of the virus was confirmed in the United States, the newspaper said.
Savannah River Hits 10 Cases; 3 Recovered at Portsmouth Paducah
The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said two new confirmed cases brought it up to 10 as of Friday. Six of those workers have recovered and returned to work either on-site or telecommuting, a spokesperson said.
Essential mission critical operations continue at SRS with maximum use of telework, according to its website. Less than 2,500 employees are working on-site, compared to normal staffing of 11,000.
The SRS website notes South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) has an order largely restricting residents to either home or their workplace through Monday, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has also a “shelter in place” order extending through next Thursday.
The SRS operations office said on its website Friday that while no change in operating status will happen right away, planning is underway for a gradual increase in site operations.
Elsewhere, two individuals with confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the DOE Paducah Site in Kentucky, as well as one at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, have all recovered and been cleared to return to work, a spokesperson at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office said Friday. The spokesperson could not provide staffing numbers at two former gaseous diffusion plant locations.
Nuclear Cleanup Office Inserts CARES Act Relief Into Contracts
The Office of Environmental Management confirmed Tuesday that contracts at its locations are being modified to include paid leave for certain workers who cannot telecommute during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Environmental Management “is in the process of modifying applicable prime contracts to incorporate a contract clause to implement Section 3610 of the CARES Act” regarding paid leave, a spokesperson said via email.
Documents on a federal procurement website Monday indicated DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is already inserting language to its prime contracts allowing government reimbursement for paid time off at major nuclear-weapon sites.
Section 3610 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act gives DOE contract officers authority to modify terms and conditions of agreements to ensure that affected vendor employees can qualify for an average of up to 40 hours per week of pay while schedules are disrupted by the pandemic.
The bill was signed into law on March 27.
An industry source said Thursday the process of place the verbiage in contracts takes some time because it involves attorneys and contracting officers, but will eventually get done. A DOE cleanup office procurement chart lists 32 “major” contracts, but it is not clear how many will need to be updated.
A number of contractor employees at DOE locations cannot do their jobs remotely. These include blue-collar workers such as mechanics and heavy equipment operators, along with scientists and others who work with classified data as part of their jobs. Most DOE nuclear sites reduced operations by March 30, with many vendor employees now drawing pay under a “weather” exemption in their contracts, which only lasts 30 days. The legislation could enable them to keep drawing a check through Sept. 30.
Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette says certain normally required tests and inspections for department personnel or facilities will either occur less frequently or be suspended altogether for about six months.
Due to orders from most governors, the Navajo Nation, and other jurisdictions, at least 316 million people across the United States “were urged to stay home, Brouillette said in the Wednesday memo obtained by Weapons Complex Monitor.
Affected procedures include employee drug testing, firearms training, heavy equipment operator refresher training, and the frequency of some equipment and materials inventories. The altered directives went into effect March 13 and can last for up to 180 days, although the Energy Department could lift the changes before then.
