The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is making preparations for bringing staff back to their offices amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Ninety-eight percent of the federal regulator’s personnel have been working remotely since March to help prevent the spread of novel coronavirus 2019 during the national public health emergency.
The agency’s “COVID Task Force continues to review plans for a phased approach to a return to the workplace. We have no firm timeline at this time,” David Castelveter, director of the NRC Office of Public Affairs, said by email.
Castelveter said it was too early to discuss details of the plan, including any similarities to the Department of Energy’s framework for staffing up its own headquarters buildings. That document, issued last week, involves four distinct phases: From Phase 0, preplanning, to Phase 3, with workplace staffing levels similar to those before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Return-to-office planning has been ramping up across the federal government as local and state governments gradually (or, in some cases, rapidly) lift restrictions intended to keep individuals from congregating in groups. The virus has killed more than 100,000 in the United States alone.
The NRC is the federal regulator for the nuclear industry, including power reactors and spent-fuel storage installations. It has nearly 3,000 full-time equivalent employees, most working at headquarters in Rockville, Md.; regional offices in Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Texas; and a training site in Tennessee. Even the 130 resident inspectors at nuclear power plants have been working from home, with regular visits to their assigned facilities. (On Thursday, the NRC issued updated guidance for stepping up Reactor Oversight Process inspections as COVID-19 restrictions are drawn down around the country.)
As of Thursday, the agency had logged three confirmed cases of the viral disease among its workforce. Details were not released. “[T]o respect the privacy of the individuals, NRC will not be sharing additional information regarding those individuals,” Castelveter wrote. “We are not aware of any NRC employees currently in self-isolation.”
The agency has taken a number of steps to assist its licensees during the health crisis, including expediting consideration of applications for exemptions from various regulations.
That has covered approving requests from eight nuclear power plants for temporary lifts on work-hour limits to ensure sufficient staffing at reactors. This allows personnel to work up to 16 hours in a 24-hour stretch, 86 hours over seven days, and 12-hour shifts for up to 14 days straight.
On May 13, the agency signed off on a two-month delay for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy to file the license renewal application for its Morris Operation independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) in Grundy County, Ill. The application is now by July 31, a delay GE Hitachi said was necessary due to lower staffing levels, schedule changes, and data-access issues due to COVID-19 safety measures.
At deadline Friday, the regulator had not posted its decision regarding a May 13 request from Pacific Gas & Electric to postpone physicals and some training for security personnel at the ISFSI for the decommissioned Humboldt Bay power plant in Eureka, Calif. The utility wants an exemption until the pandemic is over, due to social distancing concerns.
Also pending is a May 14 request from the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. to push back the deadline until the pandemic is over for annual physicals for some security personnel at the spent-fuel storage pad for the decommissioned Haddam Neck power plant.
The only approved regulatory exemption for a decommissioning nuclear power plant announced to date covers Holtec International’s Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey. On May 20, the NRC said the company could suspend quarterly and annual security training exercises until Dec. 31, 2020, or when New Jersey lifts its pandemic restrictions, whichever comes first.
On Wednesday, the regulator posted an enforcement guidance document for its inspectors for dealing with breaches of emergency preparedness regulations at operational and decommissioned nuclear power plants, spent fuel storage pads, medical isotope facilities, and other licensees.
Effectively, the regulator would be willing to give licensees a pass on citations so long as short-term measures are in place to ensure there is no reduction in emergency response preparedness.
“The NRC staff, in coordination with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staff (as appropriate), is mindful that Offsite Response Organizations (OROs) and licensees are currently responding to the [federal public health emergency] and protecting the health and safety of the public, including their respective staff,” the document says. “Therefore, the NRC, in consultation with FEMA, should be open and flexible with the goal of minimizing undue burden or hardship on the affected communities, and should be cognizant of Federal, State, and local public health directives that have been issued in response to the PHE.”
Among the potential impacts, according to the guidance: revisions to standard plans for staffing an emergency response center during an incident, to avoid close contact and promote social distancing; establishing short-term alternatives to the standard approach for inventorying emergency gear at local hospitals that must focus on the health crisis; and deciding how to manage training exercises and other mandatory readiness activities.
