Friday, January 07, 2000
Fernald cleanup crew looks to finish in 2006
BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CROSBY TOWNSHIP — With a name change and a few new job titles announced this week, the company managing cleanup of the defunct Fernald uranium processing plant formalized the beginning of the end.
Fluor Daniel Fernald, now just Fluor Fernald, opened a “site closure office” to synchronize the work of more than 1,800 employees on various cleanup projects at the 1,050-acre facility. It will focus on wrapping things up and helping workers move on to other jobs.
The idea is to get it all done by the end of 2006.
But first, Fluor Fernald must win a final contract from the Department of Energy (DOE). Though its current deal expires in December, company officials had assumed they would be given an inside track on the estimated $1 billion closure contract.
They were surprised in August to learn that the DOE will consider competitive bids at the end of this month.
“We definitely see (the recent moves) as strengthening our position for rebid,” said Terry Hagen, who was just named vice president of site closure.
“But it's what we would naturally be doing anyway. ... We feel we're in the home stretch of the cleanup process.”
That is bittersweet news for site employees who, as community members, will be glad to see the contaminated site turned into wetlands, woods and a secure, low-level waste landfill. But they will lose their jobs.
“There's going to be a lot of people in my division who are going to be out of a job,” said George Kephart, a Milan, Ind., resident and Fluor Fernald hazardous waste technician — “one of the guys in blue suits who get our hands dirty.”
He spoke at a Tuesday night meeting of the Fernald Community Reuse Organization, which is dedicated in part to helping workers start their own businesses or find other jobs as they are no longer needed at Fernald.
“I'm glad that this organization does exist,” he said, outlining plans to start an environmental remediation firm with a couple of his co-workers. Not everyone agrees on the timeline for closing.
The DOE and Fluor Fernald want it to be complete in 2006.
But the most controversial and potentially dangerous part — removing and treating radioactive waste from two crumbling concrete silos — is undecided.
The project was set back by a 1996 pilot plant melter accident, and officials are just now deciding how to make another attempt at treating the waste.
Fluor Fernald's Mr. Hagen said one of the methods under consideration could get the job done by 2006.
But Lisa Crawford, president of Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health and a member of the site Citizens Advisory Board, said she doesn't expect the cleanup to be done before 2008 or 2010. She is among those who favor the other silo waste treatment technology.
Mr. Hagen acknowledged that the silo project could slow things down.
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