There have been 29 deaths from COVID-19 across the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup enterprise, 6,141 confirmed cases since the pandemic began and at least two prime contractors at major federal sites that say they will order employees to get vaccinated.
Those are a few of the pre-Labor Day developments confirmed by Weapons Complex Monitor as the DOE and its Office of Environmental Management take an increasingly harder line to induce federal employees and contractors to take a COVID-19 vaccination.
There were 295 active confirmed cases of the virus at DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) workplaces over the past week, a spokesperson for the cleanup branch said Thursday. That is down from the 344 the prior week and also less than the non-winter peak of 423 for the seven days that ended Aug. 18. The lowest weekly COVID number during August was 205 reported Aug. 5, which still represents nearly a three-fold increase from the 76 confirmed by the office in mid-May.
Also this week, the management and operations contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina became the second DOE nuclear site prime to announce it will order employees to take the COVID-19 vaccine. The first was Triad National Security, which runs the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, in making vaccination mandatory.
“Eleven of our team members here at the site have been hospitalized in the last 2 months and four of them have passed because of this terrible disease,” Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) President and CEO Stuart MacVean said in a Thursday memo to employees. Vaccination against COVID-19 will soon be a “condition of employment” at the operations contractor for Savannah River, MacVean wrote.
“The average age of the deceased employees was 48 and we understand that they were unvaccinated,” MacVean said. He added the Fluor-led joint venture, which employs thousands at Savannah River, is still working out all the details, such as the timeline and potential exemptions for medical or religious reasons.
The SRNS mandate will apply to all its employees, subcontractors, new hires and telecommuters, MacVean said.
As for the Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractors at the federal complex in South Carolina, “At this time, SRR has not issued a vaccination mandate, though it is being considered,” a spokesperson said by email Thursday.
DOE Gears Up Vaccine Vetting, Testing Program at Hanford
Earlier in the week, the manager at EM’s biggest nuclear cleanup site said DOE is implementing an electronic system for employees and contractors to either verify they are vaccinated against COVID-19, or refuse to reveal their status, according to a Monday letter to workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
“On Friday, DOE launched an electronic vaccination attestation form to obtain information from federal employees about their vaccination status,” site manager Brian Vance said in the memo posted online. There is an option not to disclose vaccination status, he added, but it will result in someone being counted as unvaccinated and subject to regular testing.
Likewise, on Tuesday, Sept. 7, contractors at the former plutonium production complex will launch an updated Hanford Attestation Application, which the memo indicates can be completed via smartphone app. The contractor employee’s manager will be electronically notified and “will be required to visually verify proof of the employee’s COVID-19 vaccination,” according to the Vance memo.
Also, visitors to DOE will be required to fill out a disclosure form on vaccination status.
Those unvaccinated federal employees and contractors will be required to undergo mandatory testing for the coronavirus that will be conducted at least weekly under a program being put together by DOE and the contractor executives, Vance said. The testing regime is expected to be operating in October, said Vance.
Unvaccinated employees who telecommute full time are not required to be tested unless they must report to an on-site location.
“Employees who are required to be tested, and fail to do so, will have their access to the site restricted,” Vance said in the memo.
“Please help us keep one another safe by considering a vaccine if you haven’t already received it, staying home when you’re not feeling well, and always practicing situational awareness,” Vance said.
Provided that this is the template that DOE employs across the weapons complex, the agency could need to make a big commitment to testing given that sites like Hanford and the Savannah River Site employ thousands of people and a sizable chunk of them are still unvaccinated, one industry source said Wednesday.
DOE is in the process of implementing testing requirements under the COVID-19 Workplace Safety Plan released last month, the EM spokesperson said via email.
The DOE and other federal agencies, as well as many large companies, are taking an increasingly aggressive stance to push reluctant employees to get vaccinated against the virus that has claimed more than 630,000 American lives in less than two years. Twenty-nine workers at Hanford informed their managers this week they have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a website run by a Leidos-led contractor.
