The Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Management Office released on Jan. 18 its 2022 calendar year cleanup priorities, setting an agenda that will impact members at least five USW-represented sites who work on cleanup of radioactive and chemical waste.
This year's priorities focus on achieving significant construction milestones, executing key cleanup projects, reducing the environmental management footprint, awarding new contracts, and improving the agency's cleanup performance, with a focus on sustainability and innovation.
Jim Key, president of the USW Atomic Energy Workers Council (AEWC), cautioned that these priorities are largely aspirational and remain subject to the availability of federal funding.
He also raised concern that the push to complete these goals could negatively impact nuclear workers' health and safety.
"We have seen contractors rush cleanup work by allowing unsafe actions and short-cuts in order to complete a project before DOE's proposed deadline so they receive performance-based incentives," Key said. "We report these unsafe actions to the DOE when members tell us about them."
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