Precautions are being taken to protect returning employees at Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites from COVID-19, Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes said Wednesday.
“We are moving to reopen some of the facilities” overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Menezes told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during his nomination hearing to become deputy secretary of energy.
The agency is ensuring that areas around the sites meet “gating criteria” that show declining instances of novel coronavirus 2019 infections before frontline workers return to the jobsite, Menezes said in response to a question from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) regarding safety measures at the Hanford Site in her state.
Reopening “will be data driven. And that data will be the downward trend on the testings of any cases, whether it’s positive cases of COVID or influenza-like symptoms,” Menezes said. “It’s also being driven to ensure they have sufficient medical supplies … by the local health officials there. It’s also being driven by the fact that the facilities that you open have to be able to accommodate the social distancing requirements.”
Most federal and contractor employees at 15 of the 16 Cold War sites have been home since late March, either teleworking or on paid leave, to help curb the spread of the disease. Menezes reaffirmed Energy Department statements about taking a deliberate and incremental approach to resuming more normal staffing levels at sites where only bare bones tasks are being done to keep the facilities from posing a risk to the environment and the public.
The Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Reclamation Action (UMTRA) project in Utah, where many employees are heavy equipment operators, is the only DOE cleanup site that did not dramatically reduce its staffing during the pandemic.
