Sites across the DOE cleanup complex risk missing regulatory milestones and will face furloughs of thousands of contractor workers if the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration are implemented, according to a report released yesterday by Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. “Up to 30 compliance milestones across the complex would be delayed which could result in significant fines and penalties,” the report states. The cuts, which will take place March 1 unless Congress intervenes, would result in the suspension of shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, cutting back operations at the Oak Ridge on-site landfill, suspension of waste exhumation at Idaho, delays in tank waste processing at Hanford and the Savannah River Site and the suspension of plutonium processing at Savannah River’s H-Canyon facility.
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Sequestration cuts are currently set to total 7.3 percent for defense environmental cleanup funding and 5.1 percent to non-defense environmental cleanup funding and uranium enrichment D&D funding. “Significant furloughs of the Defense Environmental Management contractor workforce would range from weeks to months,” according to the report, which puts the number of workers affected at 4,000 to 5,000. Notably, more than 1,000 workers at the Savannah River Site would be furloughed for four months and more than 1,000 workers at Hanford would be furloughed for six weeks. When asked for comment on the report late yesterday, a DOE Office of Environmental Management official said, "This is part of our ongoing deliberations about the potential sequestration impacts."
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