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Stimulus Funding Creating Cleanup Jobs At DOE’s Idaho Site
Arimo resident Jeff Johnson did something this week he hasn’t done since
January.
He reported to his new job.
Funding for Johnson’s position is part of the $468 million in additional
funding that the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Idaho Site received under the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The additional funding will help
accelerate work on both the Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) and the Advanced Mixed
Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP). Both projects are being managed by contractors
for the DOE at the Idaho Site. To date, more than 100 positions have been posted
between the two contractors and the local small businesses supporting them.
Jeff Johnson is starting work at DOE’s AMWTP Project and is one of several
dozen employees who will be hired at AMWTP. Johnson, who previously worked at
the Ashgrove Cement Company, is looking forward to his new opportunity. “Right
now, I’m real happy to be going back to work and appreciate how quickly DOE and
its contractors were able to create a job that will help me to support my
family. I didn’t realize all the work this project has done getting nuclear
waste out of Idaho,” said Johnson.
Johnson will be joining a project that has shipped more transuranic
radioactive waste to the DOE’s only nuclear waste repository – located near
Carlsbad, New Mexico – than any other site in the DOE’s complex.
The work is being done safely too, as employees have worked more than 8.3
million hours (more than five years) without a lost time injury. “I’m impressed
with all the safety training that I’m receiving. There really is an emphasis on
leaving work in the evening the same way you reported in the morning so you can
keep coming back,” Johnson said.
Christie Sharp is another new employee who will be joining Johnson and
reporting to work at AMWTP. The Idaho Falls woman was anxious to return to the
workforce and had been looking for a job since last November. Now, because of
the Recovery Act, she has that opportunity.
Sharp is the first employee hired at the Idaho Site using Recovery Act
funding. “I feel privileged to be working again and am proud to be part of a
project that is cleaning up Idaho.”
Since May 1, 2005, employees at AMWTP have safely and compliantly shipped
more than 28,000 cubic meters of transuranic and mixed low-level radioactive
waste out of Idaho. Added to previously shipped amounts, nearly half of the
65,000 cubic meters of stored radioactive waste that the Idaho Settlement
Agreement requires to be shipped out of Idaho by December 31, 2018 has left the
state.
“We’re pleased to be getting the Recovery Act money to our contractors, who
are quickly moving to hire new employees that will help expedite cleanup work,”
said DOE Idaho Operations Deputy Manager Rick Provencher. "DOE is delivering on
its promise to cleanup its Idaho site and it will happen quicker thanks to the
additional Recovery Act funding we have received.”
Over the course of the next several months the Idaho Cleanup Project and the
AMWTP Project will continue to hire new employees. When positions are open they
are advertised on the two projects’ internet web sites listed below, where
potential employees can electronically submit their resumes for consideration.
For more information, please visit us at: The Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment
Project website- http://amwtp.inl.gov. The Idaho Cleanup Project website-
https://idahocleanupproject.com.
Editorial Date May 1, 2009
By Bradley Bugger
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