Fluor Idaho said this week it has not yet lifted a stop work order in effect for certain operations at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory.
The order was issued after a June 5 accident in which an employee suffered a puncture wound while doing cleanup work in a glove box at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP). It remains in effect for work in glove boxes, Erik Simpson, spokesman for the site cleanup contractor, said by email. The AMWTP is located at INL’s Radioactive Waste Management Complex.
The “limited” stop work order also extends to radiological locations where employees use sharp tools, a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday. “Employees continue to work other job functions at the AMWTP, including waste sizing, characterization and shipping,” the spokesperson added.
In addition to investigating the incident, the contractor is reviewing its personal protective equipment and work methods. Fluor Idaho has not yet provided many details on the work order, like how many people are affected by the stop work order or when it expects glove box work might resume.
The worker felt a jab in the forearm while reaching across the glove-box tray, according to a June 7 press release from DOE and Fluor Idaho. A puncture hole was notice in the worker’s personal protective equipment. The cause of the penetration has not yet been revealed.
The employee received medical attention, including a radiological exam, and was cleared to return to work, according to the Energy Department. Fluor Idaho continues to investigate.
The accident occurred less than two months after an April 11 incident in which four 55-gallon drums of solidified radioactive waste overheated and ruptured at the Accelerated Retrieval Project 5 facility in INL’s Radioactive Waste Management Complex.
Fluor Idaho will file its next report with Idaho regulators by month’s end on its cleanup efforts and investigation into the drum breach.
Former Idaho Gov. Philip Batt opposes potential Energy Department shipment of transuranic waste from the Hanford Site in Washington state to the Idaho National Laboratory.
Batt, a Republican, was governor from 1995 to 1999, and championed a landmark settlement between the state, DOE, and the U.S. Navy that limited nuclear waste storage in Idaho. He discussed his position in a June 15 column in the Idaho Statesman newspaper.
“My agreement called for cleaning up everything possible at the site and shipping all transuranic waste — the long-lived nuclear waste — to a secure facility in New Mexico,” Batt wrote, referring to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
“After cleaning up everything being stored above our Snake River Aquifer, it is ironic that our U.S. government now wants to send Hanford, Wash., transuranic waste to Idaho in order to prepare it for shipment to New Mexico,” Batt said. “Come on, Hanford. Prepare your own transuranic waste and send it to New Mexico. We did ours.”
The Idaho-based Snake River Alliance has launched a campaign to stymie any proposal to ship 7,000 cubic meters of TRU waste from Hanford to INL’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) for repackaging prior to ultimate disposal at WIPP.
The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management and the Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board have discussed potential shipments, although no formal application has been filed, according to both the state and DOE.
The 1995 agreement says any radioactive waste brought into Idaho must be shipped out within a year. The agreement also set an end-of-2018 deadline for INL’s pre-existing inventory of 65,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste to be repackaged and shipped out of Idaho. Most of the inventory had been moved out prior to February 2014, when WIPP suspended waste disposal for about three years after an underground radiological release. The WIPP outage has been cited as a reason the 2018 deadline might not be met.
Battelle Energy Alliance, the management contractor for the Idaho National Laboratory, confirmed Tuesday it is offering a voluntary severance package for long-term employees until Sept. 4.
“We now have an opportunity that makes it possible for us to offer a self-select voluntary separation program and are able to accept up to 99 applications,” INL Director Mark Peters said in a Thursday email to employees. The contractor has about 4,300 employees at the lab, which works across the Energy Department mission areas of energy, national security, science, and environment.
Even if the Battelle does not meet the target, there will be no forced layoffs, Peters said. The director said there was no dire need to shrink the workforce: “Instead, this allows for a realignment of staff capabilities with DOE mission priorities.”
The process enables employees to volunteer to retire or end their tenure at INL, Peters said.
Employees whose applications are accepted will get a severance package with a one-time payment based on years of service, said Battelle Energy Alliance spokeswoman Sarah Neumann. The severance effort has no effect on the Idaho Cleanup Project, run by Fluor Idaho, or its employees, she noted in an email.
This is the first company’s workforce restructuring since 2014, Neumann said.
Battelle Energy Alliance is a wholly owned subsidiary of Battelle that has managed the lab since November 2004. Its integrated subcontractors are BWXT, AECOM, and the Electric Power Research Institute. The Battelle team recently finalized a $5 billion deal to stay on as management contractor at INL through September 2024.
The Board of Directors for the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) could hire a new executive director for the organization by the end of the month.
The deadline for the RCLC’s request for proposals was June 6, and the board’s executive committee could make a recommendation at a board meeting tentatively set for June 29, County Manager Harry Burgess said by email last week.
Given the pending selection of a candidate and negotiations, the coalition will not release details until a new director is chosen, Burgess said. Los Alamos County is providing administrative support for RCLC until a new director is in place.
The community group is a coalition of local governments near the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico. Part of the group’s mission is to push for maximum federal funding for DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Office of Environmental Management operations at Los Alamos. It also seeks to ensure local residents share in the economic benefits of the government lab.
The group has been without an executive director since the end of February, when the board did not renew Andrea Romero’s contract after a public dispute over expense reimbursements. The controversy did not prevent Romero from winning a Democratic primary earlier this month for a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives. She defeated Carl Trujillo in a primary election for the 46th State District.
Like Romero, the new executive director would not an employee, but rather an independent contractor for the RCLC. The contract for Andrea Romero Consulting was reportedly $140,000 per year and included web hosting services. The RFP proposed an initial two-year term with the potential for two single-year renewals for the new executive director.
