ECA Update: July 19, 2013
Published: Fri, 07/19/13
|
New undersecretary for Hanford oversight to be named
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
July 18, 2013
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
July 18, 2013
A Department of Energy reorganization will move oversight of the Hanford nuclear reservation under the newly created position of undersecretary for management and performance.
The White House announced Thursday afternoon that Beth Robinson, chief financial officer at NASA since 2009, will be the nominee for the job.
Robinson previously served as the assistant director for budget at the Office of Management and Budget and deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office.
She is educated as a scientist, with a bachelor's degree in physics from Reed College in Portland and a doctorate in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
She also has congressional experience, including as principal minority staff member for the House Committee on Science from 1995-98 and earlier as a staff member for the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology and project director for the Office of Technology Assessment.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., applauded the reorganization, which could help make Hanford and other environmental cleanup work a higher priority within DOE.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management, with responsibility for Hanford, no longer will report to the undersecretary for nuclear security. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz made the announcement Thursday as he held his second town hall meeting with DOE employees since taking office two months ago.
Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu shifted responsibility for Hanford and other environmental cleanup work to the undersecretary for nuclear security two years ago without consulting Congress. The undersecretary for nuclear security also leads the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, which was formed within DOE by Congress in 2000 for the management and security of the nation's nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation and naval reactor programs.
"Since the Office of Environmental Management was first placed under NNSA oversight, I've been very concerned about prioritizing funding for the Hanford site against other NNSA projects," Murray said in a statement.
She was pleased that Moniz created the new undersecretary for management and performance position to ensure federal funds are spent wisely and effectively, she said.
Hastings expressed a similar sentiment.
"This plan addresses my longstanding concerns about moving EM (environmental management) under the NNSA where it would always come last in line behind weapons programs," Hastings said in a statement.
The reorganization should provide the clear and narrow focus the environmental management program needs to be successful, he said.
"After a productive meeting with Secretary Moniz last week, I am encouraged by this renewed prioritization of the nuclear waste cleanup responsibilities of the federal government," he said.
New Manhattan Project Resource Page Launched
DOE
July 16, 2013
Within a month, World War II was over, and the world changed forever. In a national survey at the turn of the millennium, both journalists and the public ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb and the end of World War II as the top news stories of the twentieth-century.
The Department of Energy is the direct descendant of the Manhattan Project. The Department, through the National Nuclear Security Administration, continues to manage the Nation's nuclear weapons program. The Department continues to own the Federal properties and oversee activities at most of the major Manhattan Project sites, including Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. As Secretary Moniz recently noted, today our Department and our National Laboratories are on the front lines of the effort to stop nuclear proliferation and ensure a peaceful nuclear future for the world.
The Department, as Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman noted in 2011, "is proud of its Manhattan Project heritage." The Department has sought to be a good steward of its material inheritance, committed to preserving for posterity the Y-12 Beta-3 Racetracks and X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, the B Reactor at Hanford, and the V-Site Assembly Building and the Gun Site at Los Alamos. Beginning in 2006, the Department partnered with the National Park Service to explore the possibility of creating a Manhattan Project National Historical Park. In 2011, the Secretary of the Interior, with the Department of Energy's concurrence, recommended to Congress that a three-site Manhattan Project National Historical Park be established at Oak Ridge, Hanford and Los Alamos. Congress currently is considering legislation to create the park. If a park is established, the Department and the National Park Service, in a unique arrangement within the park system, would be partners in maintaining, managing and interpreting the park.
The Department also has sought to preserve and make available to the public its informational and documentary inheritance. Today, the Department, on the anniversary of the Trinity test, launched The Manhattan Project: Resources, a web-based, joint collaboration between the Department's Office of Classification and Office of History and Heritage Resources. The site is designed to disseminate information and documentation on the Manhattan Project to a broad audience including scholars, students, and the general public.
The Manhattan Project: Resources consists of two parts: 1) a multi-page, easy to read and navigate "history" providing a comprehensive overview of the Manhattan Project, and 2) the full-text, declassified, 35-volume Manhattan District History commissioned by General Leslie Groves in late 1944. The new site brings together an enormous amount of material, much of it never before released, and should appeal to both the casual reader and an academic audience.
Learn more about the Department's history, the Manhattan Project, and the proposed Manhattan Project National Historical Park at energy.gov/management/history.
A Peek Inside A Once-Top Secret Spot In Atomic Age History
Martin Kast, NPR
July 15, 2013
People tend to remember that the atomic bomb was developed at Los Alamos, New Mexico and Oak Ridge, Tenn., but they often forget about a third nuclear production complex -- the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. It's where they built the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor.
The "B Reactor" is a windowless, cinderblock hulk out in the middle of nowhere. You might mistake it for an abandoned cement plant. But inside, it's a lovingly-preserved time-capsule of the Atomic Age. If you're lucky, your guide will be one of the people who worked here when the place was still new.
Paul Vinther signed on at the plant in June of 1950. He's a physicist, and his first job was helping to fine-tune the nuclear reaction that turned uranium into the highly radioactive plutonium that went into bombs, such as the one that fell on Nagasaki. He got here during Cold War, when B Reactor was churning out the raw material for America's growing nuclear arsenal.
Vinther leads a tour group into the control room.
The control room is very mid-century. It's government-issue green, with hundreds of analog gauges wired to the reactor core. No computers screens here. A vintage, hand-lettered sign warns against bumping into things.
"Well, the idea is that if you bump it, you might cause the electrical connection of this thing to vibrate. It might activate. You don't want to shut the reaction down because you bumped it!" he says.
Did that ever happen? "It must have at one time because they wouldn't have said that," Vinther says. "But people were very careful."
Vinther seems torn: He knows tourists want tales of hair-raising near-misses. But he insists his co-workers did their jobs safely. Still, there's no getting around the fact that the potential danger is what makes this place interesting. It's a point made by the hacksaw hanging on the wall in front of the reactor itself. The hacksaw has a very long handle.
"That shows when [people were] working on something hot that had to be cut, they could stand quite a distance away and still do the job," he says.
"Hot" -- as in radioactive.
Sometimes tourists ask Vinther why he participated in the production of such frightening weapons. For him, it's simple: He says the A-bomb saved American lives. But when asked about all the radioactive waste produced here, he sighs. He calls it "a sad situation."
"Here we were, worried about Germany and Japan, and then we worried about Cold War situation with Russia," Vinther says. "The idea was, 'Well, we'll just put the waste into tanks, and we'll handle it later, when we have time.' "
Later is now. Hanford no longer makes plutonium. The alphabet soup of reactors that followed B have been shuttered and sealed up, and now the sprawling, 586-square mile Hanford site has become synonymous with a giant remediation effort. Government contractors are billions of dollars into the process, with no end in sight. In fact, when it comes to cost and sheer technical complexity, the reactor is actually less impressive than the modern-day cleanup -- and they offer tours of that, too.
Proposed Cleanup Plan for Hanford's 300 Area
Tri-Party Agreement
July 15, 2013
The Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) agencies- the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) - invite your input on the Proposed Plan for cleanup of contaminated soil and groundwater along the Columbia River in the 300 Area of the Hanford Site, in southeastern Washington State. The Proposed Plan, prepared under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, describes the cleanup options and identifies the preferred cleanup alternative. The Plan is being issued for a 30-day public comment period from July 15 through August 16, 2013.
Background
Hanford's 300 Area covers about 40 square miles along the Columbia River and is in the southeast corner of the Site, just north of Richland.
The 300 Area, which began operations in 1943, was where the fuel for Hanford's nine plutonium reactors was manufactured. It was also home to experimental and laboratory facilities, including six small-scale nuclear reactors. Past operations resulted in liquid waste containing nitrate, uranium, other metals, and organics being discharged to soils in some locations of this area.
The 300 Area includes two soil Operable Units (300-FF-1 and 300-FF-2) and one groundwater Operable Unit (300-FF-5). This Proposed Plan provides remedial alternatives for 130 waste sites (3 waste sites in 300-FF-1 and 127 waste sites in 300-FF- 2) and groundwater contamination in 300-FF-5. Since the 1990s, 52 of these 130 sites have been remediated under interim cleanup decisions. The proposed plan addresses the area's remaining soil and groundwater contamination.
Hanford union negotiations continue after failed vote
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
July 16, 2013
Richland -- Hanford union workers overwhelmingly rejected the offers of five Hanford contractors proposing a collective bargaining agreement to the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council.
Voting ended at 8 p.m. Tuesday, with votes counted later that night.
The vote was: CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation workers, 408-2; Washington River Protection Solutions, 474 to 3; Mission Support Alliance, 452-2; Washington Closure Hanford, 263-17, and Advanced Technologies and Laboratories, 25-0."(Workers) will not accept substandard wages, benefits and working conditions from the contractors or DOE," said Dave Molnaa, HAMTC president. HAMTC is an umbrella organization for 15 of the unions performing work at the Department of Energy's Hanford nuclear reservation.
Negotiations will resume July 30.Negotiations between HAMTC and DOE contractors began 18 months ago and grew increasingly contentious this winter. But recently the two sides agreed to a memorandum of understanding.
As part of the conditions under the memorandum, HAMTC agreed to put contractor proposals to a worker vote and to remain neutral on the offers made. That included not publicly discussing details of the offers before workers had voted. The offers proposed have been largely the same for most of the contractors, with Washington Closure the exception.
Molnaa said before the vote that the results would make clear how workers stood on offers.
Many of the offers workers considered Tuesday included no pay increase for 2012 and increases of 1.5 to 2 percent for each of the next three years, Molnaa said after the vote. Previous negotiations had resulted in a collective bargaining agreement through spring 2012. Also under many of the current offers, workers would pay a larger percentage of their health care premiums and receive reduced benefits, Molnaa said. Workers eligible for the traditional Hanford pension plan, rather than only a 401(k)-style plan, would receive reduced payments when they retire.
In addition, overtime would become mandatory. That's a concern because of the large amount of overtime now being worked at Hanford under the current voluntary system, Molnaa said.CH2M Hill, which has taken the lead in negotiations among the contractors, has chosen not to discuss details of offers until a collective bargaining agreement has been signed.
Obviously, CH2M Hill is disappointed, said spokeswoman Dee Millikin. "But we are determined to stay the course and meet back at the table."
The contractors extended the collective bargaining agreement three times since it was set to expire March 31, 2012, but then let the latest extension expire Feb. 2, 2013. The contractors chose to stop withholding union dues from worker paychecks then and stopped paying workers for time spent negotiating.
HAMTC filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over those issues. The board proposed a settlement agreement, and when contractors did not sign it, it issued a complaint. As part of the memorandum of understanding with HAMTC, the contractors agreed to resume withholding dues and paying workers at the negotiating table. HAMTC agreed to withdraw the labor complaint, but the board has set a trial date for Oct. 29 and has the authority to decide whether to go forward with the complaint.
SRS budget challenges shared in community forum
Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle
July 18, 2013
Doug Hintze calls it the "budget dance" and tries not to fall out of step.
"There's a lot of back and forth, as you can imagine," Savannah River Site's acting chief financial officer told community leaders Thursday.
In a perfect world, the funding process for the 310-square-mile U.S. Department of Energy site yields an annual appropriation that lets everyone know, well in advance, how many dollars are available in a given year.
But the world is rarely perfect.
"Our fiscal year is Oct. 1 to Sept. 30," he said during a public forum to discuss federal budget cuts. "We have not had an appropriation at the beginning of the year in 14 years."
The site accounts for about 12,000 jobs. During the Cold War, its employment peaked at 38,000.
The ebb and flow of workers, and the dollars required to keep them busy, can be affected by factors such as site missions, economic conditions and politics.
Often, the site's budget is tied to "continuing resolutions" used by Congress to keep the government operating while budget discussions are extended.
"The difference is, when you're down at our site, trying to operate, you don't always know the scope of the funding you'll have," Hintze said.
Other factors, such as this year's sequestration cuts, can also cause confusion.
Initially, the mandated, across-the-board cuts were supposed to occur Jan. 2 and amount to a 9.4 percent reduction. It was later postponed until March, with the amount of the cut adjusted to 7.7 percent.
Officials at the site scrambled to keep in step with the changes.
"We let go of 900 folks," Hintze said. "You can't spend more than you get. That's the law."
About 2,500 site workers were furloughed this year by reducing work weeks from 40 to 32 hours.
Hintze said it is too early to tell what's in store for fiscal 2014.
Hintze said there might be another continuing resolution in the works - but an appropriation is always possible.
"We have to plan for both cases," he said. "We're trying to deal with the uncertainties the best we can."
David Moody, the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site manager, said the flow of money affects the ability to meet deadlines, especially where Environmental Management cleanup programs are concerned.
"We challenge ourselves to accomplish the most we can with the dollars we get," Moody said.
Thursday's forum, held at Aiken Technical College, was sponsored by the SRS Community Reuse Organization.
SRR files its own draft workforce restructuring plan
Derrek Asbery, Aiken Standard
July 12, 2013
Savannah River Remediation has filed its own draft workforce restructuring plan just days after the Savannah River Site released a request for public comment on its restructuring plan.
Savannah River Remediation's plan comes in response to the proposed cuts to liquid waste operations on the Site.
"SRR has submitted a draft workforce restructuring plan to DOE for review based on the President's Budget Request for FY14," said interim Savannah River Remediation President Stuart MacVean in his message to employees.
According to President Barrack Obama's FY14 budget request, waste contractors, such as Savannah River Remediation, will in fact be taking financial hits. Total funding for tank waste cleanup operations was cut to $644.5 million in the budget, which is a $183 million drop from the current funding level.
"DOE's planning guidance in this area is consistent with how past activities have been carried out," MacVean said. "If contractors at SRS need to submit a workforce restructuring plan in the future, they follow the guidance in the overall SRS plan."
According to Savannah River Remediation representatives, the plan is still in draft form and is currently under review by the Department of Energy.
Savannah River Remediation initiated a workforce restructuring program in late 2012, asking employees to volunteer to leave the Site or retire. Employees who applied and were approved for program were told they would receive severance of one week's pay for every full year of eligibility service.
Savannah River Remediation is a team of companies that is led by the URS Corporation. It is a liquid waste contractor and currently holds the liquid waste contract at the Savannah River Site.
Derrek Asberry is a beat reporter with the Aiken Standard news team and joined the paper in June. He is originally from Vidalia, Ga., and graduated from Georgia Southern University with a journalism degree in May 2012.
Divided committee narrowly opposes more nuke waste at SRS
Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle
July 16, 2013
Savannah River Site's Citizens Advisory Board will oppose - at least for now - any future plan to import nuclear waste from commercial power reactors to the South Carolina facility.
During a meeting Monday in Aiken, the board discussed two sharply competing recommendations.
One position was not to support bringing commercial waste to the site under any circumstance; the other would support the idea if communities can participate through "consent-based siting" and if "proper incentives" were provided.
After a lengthy discussion, the group voted 12-10 to oppose the site's use as a spent-fuel storage venue.
Though there is no formal plan to bring spent commercial reactor fuel to the site, the demise of the federal government's Yucca Mountain project in Nevada left the nation without options for the 75,000 tons of radioactive spent fuel accumulating at commercial nuclear plants.
A blue-ribbon committee formed to explore alternatives suggested "consolidated, interim storage" of the dangerous material until a better solution can be found. The committee did not make site recommendations, but officials say it would be difficult to explore those options without considering SRS, which has nuclear waste experience and infrastructure and is in the South, which has many commercial nuclear plants.
In March, consultants hired by the SRS Community Reuse Organization - an economic development consortium - unveiled a $200,000 study concluding that the site's H Canyon processing facilities and history of nuclear involvement make it suitable for such storage.
"Consolidated storage would start with the spent nuclear fuel currently in South Carolina and Georgia and, if successful, could expand to include the remainder of the 20,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the southeastern U.S.," the report said. Subsequent phases could accommodate spent fuel from Virginia and the Northeast.
Though the project would bring money and jobs to the area, it would require broad community support to be successful, the study said, adding that storage could also lead to a reprocessing complex at SRS.
The vote taken Monday is a recommendation. A formal vote on the matter is scheduled for Monday during the board's regular meeting.
Frank Munger: DOE moving back after asbestos saga
Frank Munger, Knox News
July 17, 2013
I've talked a lot this year about the disruptions and distractions at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.
The workforce has been bedeviled by uncertainty, in part due to the ongoing and long-going process to determine who the new contractor is going to be. It took a couple of years for the National Nuclear Security Administration to run its procurement and ultimately choose the Consolidated Nuclear Security -- a team led by Bechtel National and Lockheed Martin -- to manage Y-12 in conjunction with the Pantex nuclear weapons facility in Texas. But that's been tied up since January with the protests of the awards and the reviews and actions spawned by that. Y-12 workers have also been stressed by the fallout from the July 28, 2012 break-in by peace activists, which brought about all sorts of changes and intense scrutiny from investigators from many camps.
The folks at Y-12, however, aren't the only ones who've been stressed, strained and out of kilter.
U.S. Department of Energy workers were kicked out of their workplace more than a year ago after an inspection discovered loose asbestos in the Federal Building's heating and air system. They've been working in temporary quarters ever since, either at other federal facilities or in leased offices space just down Oak Ridge Turnpike from the Joe L. Evins Federal Building.
Fortunately for them, the return home is in the offing.
DOE spokesman Mike Koentop this week the asbestos cleanup had been completed by contract workers under the directions of the General Services Administration, and preparations are underway for about 300 DOE employees to repopulate the Federal Building in stages.
Before that, however, DOE is reconfiguring parts of the building to make operations there more efficient, Koentop said.
The first redo is taking place on the building's third floor, where top managers reside. After that work is done and employees return, DOE will turn its attention to the second floor, etc., he said.
"We expect to have everyone in the building by the end of September," Koentop said.
Heyday, payday: URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, DOE's environmental cleanup manager received high grades and good money for its work over the first half of Fiscal Year 2013.
The contractor received a total fee of $3.06 million out of a maximum possible fee of $3.46 million, with ratings that ranged from "very good" to "excellent."
It's radioactive: The contract Wastren Advantage Inc. currently holds for managing DOE's Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge doesn't expire until Jan. 16, 2015.
But the federal agency is already soliciting industry -- notably small businesses -- to see how much interest and expertise there is for a possible re-competition on the contract.
DOE posted a notice last week on the FedBizOpps website "seeking to identify small businesses (including teams or joint ventures) to continue the management of waste" at the facility on the west end of the government's reservation off Highway 95. The facility processes what has been termed the nastiest waste in the Oak Ridge inventory.
Responses of interest are due July 24.
 |
|
More Information |
|
To help ensure that you receive all email with images correctly displayed, please add ecabulletin@aweber.com to your address book or contact list |
|
to the ECA Email Server |
|
If you have trouble viewing this email, view the online version |