Some of the Energy Department’s largest nuclear cleanup sites are calling more employees back to the jobsite, but asking them to travel solo to help limit the potential spread of COVID-19.
Officials for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, along with the company building the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, are asking returning employees not to participate in car pools or van pools with people outside their household.
The Savannah River Site, which has about 11,000 employees, is following guidance from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “which discourages the use of carpooling in order to maintain social distancing,” spokeswoman Amy Boyette said by email.
Bechtel, through construction of the Waste Treatment Plant, employs about 3,000 of the 11,000 workers at the Hanford Site. It estimates perhaps 28% of its workforce use van pools or car pools in normal times.
Over recent years, many employers nationally have encouraged rides haring or use of mass transit as a means to ease traffic congestion, reduce pollutions, and help workers save money.
“It is a challenge, if not impossible, to maintain social distancing when using van pools or sharing a car ride,” Waste Treatment Plant Project Manager Valerie McCain said in a May 21 memo to employees. If employees must share rides with people outside their households, they should wear face coverings, she added, noting the company has discussed the issue with Central Washington Building Trades.
The McCain memo said the company was no longer offering incentives for carpooling.
Since late March, the Energy Department has had most federal and contract employees at its 16 environmental cleanup sites either working remotely or on paid leave. Hanford, Savannah River, the Idaho National Laboratory, the Nevada National Security Site, Sandia National Laboratories-New Mexico, and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico have in the past week started Phase 1 of bringing the DOE’s remobilization plant to restore operations to pre-COVID-19 levels.
During Phase 1 a site starts recalling employees in mission-critical posts whose jobs are best performed on-site. This first batch of returning workers tend to be in jobs that require little personal protective equipment because they work in an office or other locations where social distancing is doable. The four-stage program starts with planning and eventually culminates with worksite levels returning to near pre-pandemic levels.
Energy Department representatives did not immediately comment on whether car pools are now being discouraged across the Environmental Management complex.
Representatives at the other sites could not immediately be reached for comment. A post on the Idaho National Laboratory website says workers who take the bus are expected to wear face coverings.
The other cleanup sites, with the exception of the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Restoration Action (UMTRA), which retained its normal operating levels in recent months, are still on essential-mission-critical operations.
