CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley in New York state is, like other nuclear remediation vendors for the Energy Department, decreasing its work to “mission-essential” tasks for the near future due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Daily on-site staffing at the West Valley Demonstration Project was decreased effective Monday, and many employees will “telework to the extent practicable,” a contractor spokesman said by email Wednesday. The company statement did not cite the number of affected employees.
“This action is being taken in consideration of the United States’ and New York State’s recommendation to further protect the health and safety of employees, subcontractors and vendors from the spread of the virus,” the spokesman said.
New York state has experienced 385 deaths and 37,000 cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to New York magazine.
As of March 22, the state has ordered all “non-essential” businesses to close for the time being. West Valley is scaling back operations but staff must still do talks like monitor 278 casks of high-level radioactive waste now on an interim storage pad that wait construction of a federal repository.
Operations that continue at West Valley will be prioritized “based on safety, regulatory requirements and protection of the environment, the public and our workforce,” according to the spokesman for the Jacobs-led contractor.
The continuing work includes critical compliance inspections, environmental monitoring, mitigation, security, payroll, accounting, records management, and critical preventive maintenance.
The West Valley Demonstration Project is located about 200 acres inside the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. For six years, ending in 1972, Nuclear Fuel Services, a privately-held company, ran a fuel reprocessing plant at the site.
Demolition of the West Valley Vitrification Plant, which solidified 600,000 gallons of high-level liquid radioactive waste from 1996 to 2002. The Energy Department and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) are still working on a supplement to a 2010 Environmental Impact Statement, on what to do with certain facilities expected to remain on the property beyond 2030. That supplemental EIS is expected out by the end of 2020.
COVID-19 information posted on the West Valley contractor’s website includes tips for employees working from home – advising them to encrypt emails, safeguard sensitive documents, and not to leave DOE electronic equipment unattended.
An updated Energy Department contract chart posted Thursday lists the vendor’s contract as expiring April 17. The version of the same chart published only three weeks ago cited a March 9 end date. CH2M-BWXT has a completion contract for Phase 1 decommissioning, and deactivation of the Main Plant Process Building continues, the spokesman said.
The vendor’s existing $571-million contract began in August 2011.
In October 2018, DOE issued a request for information on a new contract that would address the next stage –dubbed Phase 1B – of building demolition and soil removal. But the agency has not yet published a draft request for proposals.
