PHOENIX – The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) will be recouping some of its lost staff positions, developing power plans for its nuclear sites, all while seeking to speed nuclear remediation, Tim Walsh said here last week.
At the Waste Management Symposia last week in Phoenix, Walsh, the DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, said EM would soon be renamed the Office of Nuclear Restoration and Revitalization.
During a subsequent panel discussion at the conference, Walsh and industrial redevelopment adviser Jim Kahler discussed the DOE branch’s ability to achieve dual objectives.
“We will be rolling out a realignment soon; in the next few weeks,” Walsh said. “Our current headcount is about 823-ish or so, down from maybe a peak of 1,250. We will need to build back.”
“We have a staffing plan to add about 90 to 100 more people,” Walsh went on to say. “It will bring the full-time headcount back around 920 and that should enable EM to fill critical roles,” he added.
But it is not just adding positions but adding “focus and accountability,” Walsh said. On a side note, Walsh said Paul Murray is moving to EM from the Office of Nuclear Energy.
There was something of an exodus from Environmental Management and other DOE agencies early in the second Donald Trump administration. This was due largely to what the White House dubbed its “fork in the road” initiative for early retirements and buyouts.
“This is not a major size shift or anything like that,” Walsh said of the realignment. “It’s really just getting the right people on the right seat on the bus.”
Walsh, a real estate developer before becoming a DOE political appointee in 2025, has been tasked by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to serve as point man for data centers at DOE sites.
The data centers will use land leases rather than traditional DOE procurement procedures, Walsh said. As a result the data centers should not be a financial drain on DOE, but instead help the department foot the bill for remediation at some data center sites.
Like the Joe Biden administration’s Cleanup to Clean Energy push, the DOE under Trump is also hoping to use underutilized land at weapons complex sites for power projects – with the emphasis on advanced nuclear power.
One hurdle to overcome is that DOE’s decades-old electric infrastructure is decaying and much of it is “atrophied,” Walsh said.
Nevertheless,“the potential is immense,” Kahler said. “There are some challenges. Each of our sites has different characteristics that make them more or less suitable for certain types of power and energy.”
The Oak Ridge Site has the advantage of being on the Tennessee Valley Authority system,” Kahler said. However, “finding flat, buildable land at Oak Ridge is a challenge.”
The department hopes to redevelop the power infrastructure at these sites through use of public-private partnerships, Kahler said. This includes deals with some companies that have not previously done business in the weapons complex, he added.
EM and other DOE branches have been approached by various entities seeking to develop in or around the Manhattan Project and Cold War sites, Walsh said. Some are “dreamers” and some are very serious, Walsh said.