ECA held its Board of Directors meeting June 18 via teleconference, with a focus on summarizing the past six months of ECA activities and initiatives while also summarizing the challenges and priorities across the nuclear complex for each ECA community.
ECA was joined by Todd Shrader, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Environmental Management, who provided his insights on the state of affairs within the Department of Energy as well as site overviews. Mr. Shrader has been a longtime friend to ECA, and all of our members appreciated the updates pertaining to headquarter and site operations. Mr. Shrader was also able to take
questions from ECA members pertaining to maintaining schedules for contracts/awards throughout the impacts felt by COVID, workforce returning to sites, and congressional budget projections for EM and infrastructure projects.
ECA staff presented several updates to members including ECA’s budget proposal for FY20, a legislative outlook including a timeline of congressional activity in the coming months, a review of ECA activities since the previous Board of Directors meeting that occurred in January 2020, a review of ECA subcommittees activities/initiatives, and a proposal for a new subcommittee on new nuclear education and
advocacy.
The board discussed a proposal for a workforce webinar to be held later this summer. Due to the impacts of COVID-19, ECA rescheduled the planned Peer Exchange on Workforce Development that was initially planned for May 2020 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ECA believes these conversations are still necessary to the nuclear enterprise and will be moving those discussions to a teleconference format.
ECA staff also presented an update on the National Cleanup Workshop. ECA, DOE, and EFCOG plan to proceed with holding the workshop and are moving forward with a modified schedule for September 16-17 in Alexandria, VA.
To end the meeting, each community provided an update on their site operations. Most of ECA’s communities continue to feel lasting effects from COVID, but most sites are beginning to return to operations in a phased approach. Security and safety continue to be a priority within each community and at each site.
On behalf of the ECA Executive Board and ECA staff, we thank Todd Shrader and all the ECA members in attendance. ECA Chair Ron Woody said it best, “There are challenges that have arisen, but everyone’s participation on this call demonstrates a recognition that we can best address our common challenges and achieve our shared goals when we work together, no matter the circumstances. Today is a great
opportunity to bring together our members and check in with one another.”
The slides used for ECA’s presentation are online and can be found HERE.
