Managers leading cleanup at several EM sites detailed how they have made significant progress in the EM mission over the past two years despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Office of Environmental Management
December 14, 2021
minute read time
Managers leading cleanup at several EM sites detailed how they have made significant progress in the EM mission over the past two years despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That was one of the key takeaways from a roundtable discussion at the 2021 National Cleanup Workshop held by the managers of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM), Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO), Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO), EM Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA), Savannah River Site Operations Office and Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC).
The panelists provided insight into how they have navigated the pandemic and other challenges while ensuring progress in EM’s cleanup mission. They also agreed that EM’s strategic vision has enabled EM sites to maintain focus on completing important goals and milestones. EM’s Strategic Vision 2021-2031 is a blueprint to the program’s anticipated accomplishments over the next decade that will protect the public and environment.
Reinhard Knerr, CBFO manager, noted that EM’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) was able to continue receiving transuranic waste shipments throughout the entire pandemic. Last month, CBFO marked receipt of the 13,000th waste shipment to WIPP, an important landmark in EM’s mission to clean up the country’s Cold War legacy.
Laura Wilkerson, OREM acting manager, highlighted Oak Ridge’s biggest accomplishment, which was, “without question, the completion of Vision 2020.” She noted that Oak Ridge achieved the ambitious goal at the height of the pandemic. Workers accomplished Vision 2020, an EM 2020 priority, by completing demolition of Oak Ridge's East Tennessee Technology Park, making it the first site in the world to remove an entire uranium enrichment complex.
Jack Zimmerman, EMCBC director, detailed successes at EMCBC sites over the past year, including demolition of the final DOE-owned buildings at the Energy Technology Engineering Center and the teardown of the High Flux Beam Reactor exhaust stack at Brookhaven National Laboratory, which resulted in a dramatic skyline change.
The Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project was able to maintain operations despite the pandemic, according to Zimmerman. In October, workers at the site accomplished an EM 2021 priority by successfully relocating another million tons of uranium mill tailings away from the Colorado River, bringing the cumulative total to 12 million tons permanently disposed.
“Even though we are dealing with smaller sites, we are not dealing with smaller problems,” Zimmerman said as he emphasized the significance of the EMCBC sites’ achievements.
Roundtable moderator Ron Woody, county executive of Roane County, Tennessee, and chair of Energy Communities Alliance, emphasized the need for EM sites to be “investment worthy.”
Michael Mikolanis, the EM-LA manager, said the Los Alamos site is investment worthy, adding that he’s “really pleased and proud to see that I have an organization that is focused on reducing costs, accelerating the work and delivering results for the community.”
PPPO Manager Joel Bradburne highlighted the close relationships among PPPO and the Portsmouth, Ohio and Paducah, Kentucky sites, and how those relationships help ensure work gets done.
Click here to watch new EM videos on EM site missions.
To receive the latest news and updates about the Office of Environmental Management, submit your e-mail address.