Reductions in on-site staffing at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have temporarily halted virtually all physical work on the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, a state official said Monday.
Progress on the IWTU is on hold “as much of the work requires materials/contractors from outside Idaho and some confined space work (or other tasks where social distancing is not possible),” Brian English, hazardous waste permitting manager for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, said by email.
The Idaho National Laboratory and DOE cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho in late March reduced operations to “essential mission critical” activities, to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus 2019. That means most construction at the IWTU was placed in a “safe configuration,” with preventive maintenance temporarily suspended, according to an April 3 site report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).
The Energy Department hopes by the end of 2020 to start operating the IWTU, the long-awaited facility to turn sodium-bearing waste into a more stable form for disposal. Originally scheduled for startup in 2012, the facility never worked as planned, but Fluor Idaho has modified the plant over time to fix problems and is buoyed by positive tests in 2019. The current project cost of the IWTU is roughly $1 billion.
The Energy Department previously said IWTU “readiness” working is continuing, but did not specify how much of that actually involved work on-site.
About 450 of Fluor Idaho’s typical 1,800-member workforce at the Idaho National Laboratory remains on-site, with another 450 teleworking, according to the Energy Department. The rest are apparently receiving paid leave while unable to get on-site.
As of Friday, the Idaho National Laboratory reported no positive case of coronavirus infection.
Fluor Idaho is continuing to package waste bound for DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, along with processing a debris waste stream at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project, according to the DNFSB memo.
