The vast majority of Nuclear Regulatory Commission personnel continue to work remotely, even as the agency last month began reopening its offices after a months-long drawdown forced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 98% of the NRC’s full-time staff of nearly 3,000 had been teleworking from March to mid-June. That percentage has since dropped slightly, to 95% as of this week, according to Director of Public Affairs David Castelveter.
“The number of employees working in NRC facilities fluctuates as some employees are working in our facilities every day and others are working from one-four days per week,” he said by email Tuesday. “The number of employees working in those NRC facilities remains low.”
The on-site and telework staffing levels are as expected at this point, Castelveter added.
Phase 1 of remobilization began on June 15, at which point personnel could voluntarily return to their jobsites. The NRC on June 21 transitioned from “mandatory telework” to “maximum telework” – under which workers can continue telework at their discretion, but require an agreement with the agency.
This is all occurring within Phase 1 of the NRC four-part remobilization plan. The regulator aims in part to advance to Phase 2 in July and then the final Phase 3 at an undetermined time after that. In each segment, more personnel are anticipated to return to their home offices.
Three locations will begin Phase 2 on Sunday, July 12: agency headquarters in Rockville, Md., along with Pennsylvania-based Region I and Illinois-based Region III. The other locations – Georgia-based Region II, Texas-based Region IV, and the Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., will remain in Phase 1 for the time being. The NRC “will continue to monitor local conditions to determine if movement to another phase is appropriate in the future,” Executive Director for Operations Margaret Doane wrote Friday in an internal memo to staff, obtained by RadWaste Monitor.
Phase 2 will involve a shift from maximum telework to what Doane called “expanded telework with maximum flexibilities.” The agency will remained focus on providing flexibility for personnel, and continues to promote telework for those at high risk of harm if infected, she wrote.
“’Full remobilization’ is a term that does not apply to the NRC in the current situation, as our workforce continues its efforts to support our mission with a combination of telework, work being done in NRC facilities, and work at licensee locations/sites,” Castelveter stated. “We do expect the ‘new normal’ in Phase 3 to include a higher percentage of employees in a telework status, but that actual number remains fluid.”
Progression through the plan will be based on factors including the health situation in the regions and states in which the NRC facilities are located. Cases of the viral disease have spiked in Texas in recent weeks, as well as other states covered by Regions II and IV.
The number of confirmed cases of the viral disease within the NRC workforce has remained steady at five for several weeks, Castelveter said. Licensees have also reported cases – most recently a contractor employee at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has touted its capacity to carry out its mission, including oversight and licensing for nuclear power plants and waste operations, even with nearly all staff outside of the office. It received $3.3 million under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law in March to assist its work during the health crisis.
“The overarching need for the supplemental appropriations under the CARES Act is to maintain the NRC staff’s ability to complete the agency’s work during this period of expanded telework and increase the agency’s operational flexibility given the uncertainty of the pandemic,” NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki wrote in a June 24 letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, acting chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. “Specific examples include acquiring IT commodities to increase IT bandwidth for dialing into agency servers, to manage software updates for ensuring data security, and to provide remote IT support to employees.”
As of June 24, the NRC had already spent just over $604,000 of the funding.
The agency has since March provided its nuclear-power and other licensees with expedited reviews of requests for exemptions to ensure they can sustain operations during the federal public health emergency declared in January without putting their personnel at greater risk of infection by novel coronavirus 2019.
Among those, the regulator is allowing Holtec International to delay conducting a mandatory force-on-force security exercise at the retired Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts during the pandemic.
The NRC issued the exemption on June 18. The document was posted on June 26 to the agency’s website.
Federal regulations on physical protections for nuclear plants and materials require licensees to conduct quarterly tactical response drills and annual force-on-force exercises. In its request for a regulatory exemption, Holtec said it could conduct the quarterly events, but not the force-on-force exercise in which a security team must fight off a mock attack on a facility.
“Quarterly training is able to be conducted since it is done in small groups pulling select individuals off shift and training in accordance with our social distancing policies,” Andrea Sterdis, vice president for regulatory and environmental affairs for Holtec Decommissioning International, wrote in a June 11 supplement to the company’s June 5 application. “This allows us to complete the requirement for a tactical response drill on a quarterly basis. Annual training requires a full force-on-force exercise that cannot be conducted under current social distancing policies.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined the exemption would not violate federal law; would not breach life, property, or the common defense; and serves the public interest, Patricia Holahan, director of the agency’s Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery. and Waste Programs, wrote in the June 18 letter to Sterdis. The exemption is good for 90 days past the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency or Dec. 31, 2020, whichever comes first.
This is just the second regulatory exemption for a nuclear facility in decommissioning. Holtec received the first in May for its Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey, giving the company a break on both force-on-force exercises and tactical drills.
Five licensees for independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) have also received regulatory exemptions.
Most recently, on June 23, the Yankee Atomic Electric Co. received authorization to delay the physical and medical requalifications for security personnel at the ISFSI for the decommissioned Yankee Rowe power plant in Massachusetts. The extension is the same as that given to Holtec: Dec. 31 or 90 days after the Department of Health and Human Services terminates the public health emergency.
Holtec and other companies in the nuclear decommissioning and waste management industries have acknowledged impacts on their businesses in recent months, even as operations have largely continued unabated during the pandemic. That has included reductions in shipments of waste for treatment or disposal by certain companies.
US Ecology in March announced steps to save at least $70 million, including as much as $30 million in reduced capital spending and suspending quarterly cash dividends to save about $18 million. The Boise, Idaho-based waste management company also withdrew its annual earnings guidance for the year.
“We will provide any updates in next earnings announcement,” spokesman David Crumrine said by email Tuesday. Asked if US Ecology’s second-quarter earnings release had been scheduled, he said it would be announced on the company’s website.
Salt Lake City-based nuclear services firm EnergySolutions on Wednesday noted “minor slowdowns” in waste shipments. The company owns two disposal facilities for low-level waste, at Clive, Utah, and Barnwell, S.C.
“We have experienced minor slowdowns in shipments, primarily due to customers imposing work restrictions in response to relevant stay and work at home orders, but we expect such volume to return to normal as such restrictions continue to be lifted,” spokesman Mark Walker said by email Wednesday. “We have implemented and followed all applicable CDC, state and local guidelines at all our offices and facilities to safeguard our employees against the COVID-19 virus and the impact to our workforce has been minimal.”
Atlanta-based Perma-Fix Environmental Services temporarily furloughed about 50 employees in March, but brought them back ater the company received a $5.7 million bank loan under the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program. A company spokesman did not respond to a request for an update this week.
