Two recent management appointments at the Energy Department’s $7-billion nuclear cleanup office should help keep the focus on key projects, a spokesperson said this week.
The Office of Environmental Management earlier this month announced Nicole Nelson-Jean, who heads the National Nuclear Security Administration field office for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, would become the head of EM field operations.
Nelson-Jean starts her new position on Monday as Environmental Management associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations (EM-3). She will oversee operations and restoration efforts at 16 Cold War and Manhattan Project cleanup sites.
The 28-year veteran of DOE has been in her SRS post for three years. At Savannah River, Nelson-Jean led NNSA efforts to develop a site capability for production of plutonium nuclear-warhead cores by converting the canceled, unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. That plant was supposed to convert plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants, before being terminated in 2018.
At the same time, the Environmental Management office said its chief of staff, Thomas Mooney, will take on the newly created role as chief operating officer.
This is “a pivotal time for the cleanup mission,” and Mooney will assist Nelson-Jean in keeping the focus on key priorities, the DOE spokesperson said in a Wednesday email. The new field office chief and COO will help ensure that major projects stay on track, the spokesperson said.
Mooney is already serving as COO on an acting basis. He will remain chief of staff at the nuclear remediation office until a replacement is named. Mooney became chief of staff in January after serving in that role for the Pentagon’s Office of the Chief Management Officer since October 2017.
Some of the key projects at the Environmental Management office include startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, advancing toward beginning conversion of radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state into a glass-like substance for disposal, and completion demolition of facilities at the former uranium enrichment complex at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the spokesperson said.
This is at least the second time in recent years that the Office of Environmental Management has established an executive post devoted to advancing high-profile projects. An EM special projects office, designed among other things to focus on the Direct-Feed-Low-Activity Waste vitrification project at Hanford, was created in 2017 by then- DOE Acting Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Jim Owendoff.
