Doug Shoop, manager of the Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office at the Hanford Site in Washington state, will retire from federal employment on Feb. 16.
Shoop has led one of the two DOE offices overseeing the massive cleanup job at Hanford since July 2016. Brian Vance remains manager of the Office of River Protection.
The Richland Operations Office is responsible for environmental cleanup at Hanford, with the exception of work related to the radioactive waste storage tank farms and tank waste treatment at the former plutonium production complex. The office also provides overall management of the site.
The Energy Department on Monday did not immediately announce either a plan to fill Shoop’s position or whether an interim manager would be named.
Shoop has more than a decade of key leadership experience at Hanford, serving as deputy manager of the Richland Operations Office for about eight years before being named manager. He has about 32 years of management and technical experience, mostly at the Hanford Site. He has served as the Richland Operations Office assistant manager for safety and engineering and worked for previous site cleanup contractors Fluor Hanford and Westinghouse Hanford.
Shoop will leave the Richland Operations Office with the cleanup of the 618-10 Burial Ground newly completed and the Hanford Workforce Engagement Center opened. The facility helps ill Hanford workers and their families navigate complicated worker compensation and medical cost reimbursement systems.
Under Shoop’s leadership, the Richland Operations Office started to transfer radioactive sludge from underwater storage at the K West Basin near the Columbia River to dry storage at T Plant in central Hanford. Preparations also are being made to remediate a highly radioactive spill beneath the 324 Building at Hanford just north of the city of Richland.
Shoop led two of Hanford’s most high-profile projects in recent years. Demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant could resume within the next month after a spread of radioactive contamination in December 2017. He moved to quickly fill the first PUREX Plant waste storage with grout after it partially collapsed in May 2017; the second tunnel is also being filled with grout.
