Federal and industry sources said this week they don’t foresee major environmental or public safety concerns emerging if the current level of reduced staffing at Energy Department nuclear cleanup sites due to COVID-19 lingers for months.
Nearly all of the 16 remediation sites overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management have temporarily reduced their workforce inside the fence to anywhere from 10% to 25% of normal levels, based on sources around the complex.
Sources said Friday there are nine confirmed cases of COVID-19 at Environmental Management sites. This includes five confirmed cases at SRS, and one each at Portsmouth and Los Alamos. It was not immediately clear where the other two are located.
While the reduced work status is cited in different ways at different sites, the major physical work of constructing new buildings, or demolishing old ones, has largely been put on hold. That is unless the work was at a point where it was impractical to walk away from – for example, repairing a leaking pipe.
At the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, for example, there are roughly 2,500 federal and contractor workers on the property, down from the normal headcount of about 11,000, a DOE spokesperson said. Most of the others are telecommuting, while a third group that cannot work from home is still getting paid.
The level is deemed more than sufficient to keep the site from preventing the site from becoming an environmental or public safety hazard, the spokesperson said. Work on national security projects, such as tritium production, is continuing, officials said.
To date, the Energy Department has largely not responded to inquiries on what specific projects currently have reduced staffing.
“We also maintain the capability to call in other employees as necessary who may be teleworking or on leave,” the DOE spokesperson said of the situation at SRS.
A similar assessment was offered by a contractor representative at a different Environmental Management site, who requested the facility not be identified. The employees on-site performing critical duties during normal times, such as conducting government required inspections and serving on emergency crews, “so there is no shortage of manpower or lack of resources.” Likewise, other staff can be called in if needed, he added.
Tom Clements, the director of the advocacy group Savannah River Watch, said he is willing to accept “at face value” the Energy Department’s position that public safety won’t be endangered, at least in the short term. “But I can imagine that over time anticipated and unforeseen risks might develop.” Savannah River Watch is pursuing a Freedom of Information Act request to get greater detail on what work is and is not continuing at the SRS complex during the health crisis.
Don Hancock, administrator for the New Mexico-based Southwest Research and Information Center, said the level of environmental assurance during a staff cutback probably varies from location to location. Slowing transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad due to reduced staffing there or at generator sites should not pose health and safety problems, because waste can remain at the generator sites for prolonged periods.
On the other hand, scaling back on groundwater remediation, if that were to happen, could be a significant problem, Hancock said.
An executive with a DOE contractor said safety of the cleanup facilities should not be an issue even if the pandemic limits on-site workforces for months. The more significant concern, he said is the loss of progress on environmental remediation.
At the dramatically reduced staffing levels, “you are not tearing down buildings; you are not shrinking the footprint” of contamination, the industry official said.
It is likely that a percentage of this year’s Environmental Management budget, almost $7.5 billion through Sept. 30, will be spent on staff salaries and overhead without all of this year’s planned cleanup happening, said Scott Kovac, operations and research director for the nongovernmental Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
The Energy Department has confirmed only one of the 16 sites, the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project in Utah, remains at basically normal day-to-day operational levels. Many members of the 140-person Moab workforce are heavy-equipment operators who are already isolated by the nature of their work.
Most DOE nuclear cleanup jobs, such as the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah in Kentucky, are on critical or limited operations until “further notice.”
The Hanford Site in Washington state, the Energy Department’s biggest and most complex cleanup, is reviewing its situation on a weekly basis. Hanford Manager Brian Vance announced Thursday that limited operations will extend through the week ending April 17. The status will be evaluated weekly to consider a phased return to normal operations when conditions warrant, he added.
About 60% of Hanford’s 11,000-person workforce was telecommuting following the March 31 transition to essential mission critical operations, and the on-site workforce is probably no more than 20%, sources said.
Half of the 1,800-person workforce for the Idaho National Laboratory’s cleanup contractor was still working as of last week, according to the Department of Energy.
Of the 900 employees of remediation contractor Fluor Idaho, half were physically on-site and the others teleworking, a DOE spokesperson said by email this week. The spokesperson did not say if those who cannot telework are receiving paid leave.
Most of those who cannot work from home, such as equipment operators and mechanics, are currently getting paid under a DOE severe weather clause that can extend for 30 days, which effectively translates to the end of the month at most sites. In addition, the $2 trillion COVID-19 relief package signed into law last month by President Donald Trump makes additional paid leave available to affected contractors who cannot telecommute.
