More Good News

Yesterday I wrote about the good news of our jobs not necessarily being on the chopping block for layoffs in September. Today I can provide more good news: The Department of Energy has opted to extend CWI’s INL cleanup contract by another three years.

These two letters, addressed to John Boehner and Joe Biden, respectively Speaker of the House and President of the Senate, from DOE Secretary Steven Chu, began circulating around work at about 10 this morning. Chu writes:

At a time when the Nation is experiencing significant economic distress and job loss, and in light of the President’s economic recovery program to preserve and create jobs, the agency can add work to the existing contract for the period September 2012 through September 2015 and accelerate the decontamination and decommissioning of the Idaho site. Expediting this work also provides significant cost savings in future years.

The Department, therefore, intends to extend the work effort under the CWI contract for work at the INL, without using competitive procedures.

This is good news for us, as our contracted wok is scheduled to dry up this September, at least at RWMC. We’ve still got two waste facilities to build and one to dig in, with some D&D work on top of that. There’s plenty of work to do for the short term.

After 2015, it’s anybody’s guess. There may still be work here for some of us, though not all of us to be sure. This announcement, at least, makes the immediate future a bit more secure.