There is one new confirmed positive case of COVID-19 at the Savannah River Site, bringing the total to 14, the Department of Energy facility in Aiken, S.C., announced Monday.
The 13 people who were previously confirmed to have caught the disease caused by the novel coronavirus 2019 have recovered and gone back to work, according to the notice from the site’s emergency information webpage.
As with other DOE sites, and employers around the country, most personnel the Savannah River Site are teleworking these days. However, staff involved with the site’s ongoing nuclear-weapon work, chiefly the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) tritium processing program, are still on the job.
The NNSA is also still working on its Surplus Plutonium Disposition project at Savannah River Site’s K-Area. The construction effort, which for now is clearing space for three NNSA-operated glove boxes and support facilities, did shut down for two weeks in April because of a COVID-19 scare, though no one on the project tested positive.
The Savannah River Site is working on a site-wide plan to bring the full 11,000-person workforce back to the campus in phases. Among other things, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the site landlord, is waiting for cases around the region to decline for two consecutive weeks.
Different programs at Savannah River have their own COVID-19 response protocols. The Surplus Plutonium Disposition Project, for example, restarted work in April under such a protocol.
