Project contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth had prepared to lay off up to 500 workers this fall due to reduced funding from the Department of Energy and a restriction on its other funding source for cleanup of the former uranium enrichment site — authorized sales of uranium to vendors. Funding in a stopgap continuing resolution delayed that necessity, and the fiscal 2016 omnibus budget passed on Friday provides $203 million for the project through Sept. 30 of this year. That is over $70 million more than DOE requested and just $6 million less than the cleanup program received in the last budget.
That amount, “when combined with the forecasted barter proceeds at the current market pricing, will provide an adequate level of funding to sustain our project momentum and avoid any significant impacts to our workforce for the remainder of this FY,” Site Project Director Dennis Carr said in a memo to the D&D workforce.
“No one on this project should take this funding, and the confidence placed in us, for granted,” Carr added. “We must continue to earn the support we have garnered by safely delivering on our cleanup commitments, most importantly by completing the deactivation and achieving a ready-to-demolish state in the X-326 facility by June 2017.”
Carr noted that funding for the on-site waste disposal facility dropped from the $34 million requested by DOE for fiscal 2016 to $21.7 million in the omnibus. He said, though, that the funding will enable Fluor to finish designing the plant, remove trees from the area, and start putting in utilities, fences, and storm-water controls.