Site Managers Discuss Community Engagement, Contracts in Roundtable Session

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Managers leading cleanup at EM’s largest sites discussed accomplishments, the changing contracting landscape, and the importance of community engagement during a roundtable session at this year’s National Cleanup Workshop.

The panel was comprised of Savannah River Operations Office Manager Michael Budney, Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Manager Robert Edwards, EM Los Alamos Field Office Manager Doug Hintze, Oak Ridge Office of EM Manager Jay Mullis, Hanford Manager Brian Vance, and DOE-Idaho EM Manager Jack Zimmerman.

The session began with an emphasis on the significance of EM sharing its accomplishments in the communities surrounding its sites.

“It’s important to highlight our achievements in a way that reinforces the pride that should come with the difficult and challenging work we accomplish,” Vance said. He continued about the potential for members of Hanford’s 9,000-person workforce to serve as ambassadors in the community to help increase understanding about site’s operations and successes.

Hintze shifted focus to the importance of engaging the community in the early phases of planning before finalizing approaches and beginning field work. He pointed to a new community engagement program at the Los Alamos site as a means to cultivate a more open and collaborative culture.

“It takes more work upfront, but it helps ensure the community’s full support,” Hintze said. “This cleanup is not just for ourselves, it’s for our kids and the next generation beyond us, so it’s important that the community’s desires and input are valued.”

In some cases, the engagement itself is leading to new accomplishments. In Oak Ridge, these collaborations with the city and Roane County help EM transfer ownership of land and infrastructure for new uses. As a result, the region has been provided with assets to enable economic development, while helping EM avoid more than $110 million in costs associated with maintenance, emergency services, and other oversight responsibilities.

The panelists were asked how much their sites are able to collaborate with one another. Together, the sites represented on the panel account for the majority of EM’s annual cleanup budget.

“We have our regular field manager meetings and calls, but we also have relationships that allow us to discuss mutual issues,” Mullis said. “For example, since Oak Ridge, Savannah River, and Paducah are all in the same EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) region, we are able to coordinate on regulatory issues.”

Zimmerman noted that representatives of EM sites have formal meetings as well as informal interactions.

“I can easily call other sites, and they will make lessons learned available to us so we aren’t recreating the wheel,” Zimmerman said.

Edwards highlighted the Corporate Strategy Board that EM Senior Advisor Ike White recently established for field managers to weigh in on decisions for the program.

Many workshop attendees in the audience were interested to hear how EM will adjust to changes in the contracting landscape.

“We want to create conditions where world class contractors can perform world class work,” Vance said.

Budney described goals from his perspective, one of which is the need to remain “focused on meeting objectives of the mission.”

The final question for the panelists focused on how each site is taking steps to interact with the community on cleanup topics.

“We’ve made an effort to get involved with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) in local schools,” Mullis said. “In that setting, we are able to explain what engineers are doing in Oak Ridge, types of opportunities and jobs related to our work, and how to access those opportunities. To see that lightbulb go off is very gratifying.”

Vance added, “As part of (Hanford’s) outreach process, we want to allow people to ask questions directly to the men and women doing the work. If we have an issue in the future, we have already established credibility and relationship. We want to make every opportunity count.”