Members of Kentucky’s Congressional delegation met yesterday Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Deputy Secretary Dan Poneman to discuss the future of the Paducah site. Sens. Mitch McConnell (R) and Rand Paul (R) and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R) met with the officials after sending a letter last month to DOE requesting a long-term plan for the future of the site by mid-June. “The Department of Energy must act quickly to maximize long term job retention and job growth in Paducah, and we will continue to do all we can to ensure that happens,” the lawmakers said yesterday in a statement. “It is critical for the DOE to act quickly to create stability and economic certainty for the people of Paducah by making a selection on an expression of interest as well as fulfill their commitment to cleanup as soon as possible. There is significant private sector interest for utilizing the site’s assets in Paducah, so any plan by the DOE to ship the tails out of the area is unacceptable to us.”
On Monday, USEC notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its decision to end enrichment operations at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. “USEC will take steps to cease enrichment at the Paducah plant over the next several weeks and to prepare the plant site for return to DOE,” states the June 3 letter from USEC Director of Regulatory Affairs Steven Toelle to the NRC. “USEC expects to continue operations at the site into 2014 in order to manage inventory, continue to meet customer orders and to meet the turnover requirements of its lease with DOE. USEC will provide additional information to NRC concerning these ongoing operations during the next few weeks.” USEC has said that the plant is no longer economically viable given market conditions. The company began preparing for shutdown of the plant in late May after DOE rejected a proposal to extend a uranium tails reenrichment program that had been running the plant.