After an eventful couple of days, the Department of Energy turned to a longtime nuclear cleanup boss to serve as acting head of its Office of Environmental Management (EM) following the departure of Roger Jarrell.
At the same time, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations, Patty Murray of Washington, said she has placed a hold on the nomination of Tim Walsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head EM.
Until Senate confirmation is sorted out it seems Environmental Management will be led by Joel Bradburne, a familiar face around the DOE weapons complex.
“I’m pleased to share that Joel Bradburne will serve as acting assistant secretary for the Office of Environmental Management until nominee Tim Walsh is confirmed by the Senate,” EM chief of staff Alicia Stetin said in a Wednesday email to staff.
The Stetin email memo to EM staff was viewed by Exchange Monitor.
On the heels of Bradburne’s appointment, Murray announced she placed a hold on the Walsh nomination. The Washington Democrat made the move, saying Secretary of Energy Chris Wright was “stalling” the Oct. 15 startup of glass making at the long-anticipated radioactive waste vitrification plant at the Hanford Site.
“Whether Secretary Wright was given bad information or is simply confused about how the vitrification facility works, I can’t say, but I am not satisfied by his explanation for why DOE has suddenly decided to stall progress on the Waste Treatment Plant,” Murray said in the statement. “Last night I put a hold on Tim Walsh’s nomination to oversee Hanford—I am not letting up and will do everything I can to get to the bottom of DOE’s intentions and stop this catastrophic move to upend the Hanford cleanup mission,”
As for Bradburne, he has been manager of Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) since December 2021, according to his DOE biography. At PPPO he oversees remediation of the former gaseous diffusion facilities at the Portsmouth, Ohio and Paducah, Kentucky sites.
“With over two decades of service at DOE projects across the nation and a master’s degree in environmental management, Joel brings a wealth of management experience and nuclear expertise to EM Headquarters,” Stetin said in the memo.
“I’ve had the opportunity of working with Joel on a variety of issues, and I am confident that his deep expertise in environmental management will provide our office with consistent leadership as we await the confirmation of Tim Walsh,” Stetin said.
Walsh is the Colorado real estate developer and former combat veteran who is awaiting a final Senate vote to head Environmental Management. His nomination was passed out of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee in July on a party-line vote.
A former deputy manager for PPPO, Bradburne first came to the project office in mid-2009 as Portsmouth site lead. Over the past 30 years or so, Bradburne’s work life has “included shipyard, commercial nuclear, DOE, and foreign nuclear site decommissioning in various program- and project-management assignments,” according to his bio.
Bradburne’s appointment on Wednesday installs a longtime nuclear cleanup hand to serve as acting head of the $8-billion Environmental Management office.
On Monday, DOE confirmed that Jarrell, who led Environmental Management since April and was a senior DOE adviser for Environmental Management during the first Trump term, was no longer with the department. DOE declined to elaborate on Jarrell’s departure.
On Tuesday Wright issued a statement seeking to dispel speculation that DOE was looking at cancelling the multi-billion-dollar Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at Hanford Site in Washington state. The plant is expected to start making glass next month from some of the less-radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site.
Exchange Monitor and other publications reported this week that Jarrell left after disagreeing with Wright over the necessity of WTP.
The Tuesday statement and Murray’s Wednesday phone conversation with the energy secretary did little to allay Murray’s concerns about startup of the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste Facilities at WTP. ““Today, Secretary Wright admitted to me during a phone call that the Department of Energy is planning to curb hot commissioning at the Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford—an astonishingly senseless and destructive move and a threat to the entire nuclear cleanup mission at Hanford,” Murray said.
Meanwhile, Wash. Gov. Bob Ferguson (D), elected officials and labor representatives were expected to hold a press conference after Exchange Monitor press time Friday to address apparent DOE wavering on Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant. The state and local officials said abandoning the plant would violate legally binding agreements and threaten billions of dollars in investments.
The Tri-City Herald newspaper on Friday editorialized against any plan to mothball WTP in lieu of grouting most of the 56 million gallons of liquid waste left over from decades of plutonium production. “It is not an either-or proposition,” the newspaper said. DOE has recently tested the idea of grouting some of the waste that cannot be accommodated at the WTP.