EM Milestone, Award Demonstrate DOE Core Value of Safe Work Performance

Crews at the Paducah Site pause to discuss how to best proceed with demolition of one of the 33 inactive facilities demolished earlier this year. The safe demolition of unused facilities has been ongoing at the Paducah Site in recent years as the cleanup mission progresses to prepare the site for reindustrialization.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) crews recently reached a historic milestone of over 40 million safe hours at the Savannah River Site (SRS) and received an award from the National Safety Council at the Paducah Site, highlighting safety excellence and a core value of DOE culture: safe performance of work.

As the United States enters the golden era of American energy dominance, DOE will pursue multiple interrelated objectives, including promoting energy abundance, leading world-class innovation, strengthening and modernizing its weapons stockpile, and fulfilling Cold War legacy cleanup commitments. To succeed, DOE strives for a culture of transparency, performance and common sense.

With a commitment to protecting the public, its workers and the environment, DOE embraces Integrated Safety Management (ISM) as the overarching framework for safely accomplishing mission activities. ISM is a common-sense, enduring framework for identifying and controlling hazards, following applicable safety standards, delivering results and continuously improving.

EM is in lockstep with the broader DOE core value of safe performance of work, fostering a safety conscious work environment where employees understand their roles and responsibilities for safety and health, and learn from experience.

"We are committed to a strong and resilient safety culture," said Greg Sosson, EM associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations. "Our environmental cleanup program is working to safely meet DOE’s cleanup responsibilities to ensure American communities are safe and prosperous."

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s liquid waste construction workforce at the Savannah River Site has clocked over 40 million safe hours since 1998.

As DOE faces a wide array of hazards in carrying out its mission, including nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological and industrial hazards, its goal is safety excellence. That means zero accidents and zero workplace injuries.

Since the summer of 1998, the liquid waste construction workforce at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina, has been setting the standard for workplace safety, and has clocked over 40 million safe hours, which means the total number of hours worked without an employee sustaining an occupational injury that prevents the employee from returning to work the following day.

“This decades-long record demonstrates our longstanding commitment to prioritizing the safety of our workers and performing the critical work of the liquid waste mission efficiently at every step of operations,” said Edwin Deshong, EM Savannah River Operations Office manager.

The National Safety Council awarded Paducah Site deactivation and remediation contractor Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership its Million Work Hours Award on the heels of the contractor exceeding 4 million safe work hours without a lost workday accident at the legacy nuclear site in Kentucky.

“This award recognizes the dedication of the entire Paducah workforce to protecting each other, our community and the environment while carrying out DOE’s cleanup mission,” acting EM Assistant Secretary Joel Bradburne said.

-Contributor: David Sheeley