William White, a senior adviser for the Office of Environmental Management, recently thanked leaders of the United Steelworkers of the Atomic Energy Workers Council for their work at DOE sites.
“Thank you to all who work at DOE sites around the country,” White said in an Energy.gov statement. “What you’ve done over the course of the past couple of years has been absolutely amazing. The resilience you showed and the approach that all of you took to keep moving important environmental cleanup work forward while protecting the people who live in these communities across the country was absolutely incredible.”
White also mentioned the difficulty and challenges the workers have faced in doing their work recently.
“I want to acknowledge how much progress we’ve made in the middle of a very difficult operating environment,” he said. “At Idaho, where I was at just a few weeks ago, we had an opportunity to celebrate getting a transuranic waste retrieval effort finished 18 months ahead of schedule, a testament to the men and women who actually went out and made that happen. This was important to the community, to tribal nations who live around the site, and served to protect the Snake River Plain Aquifer.”
White said the job the workers do is important and the performance they achieved helps prove to Congress that funding is more necessary than ever.
“One of the things I think all of that good work shows us in looking forward — that is important to all of us — is our ability to go out and get resources for getting even more work done,” he said. “The folks in Congress, when they think about spending money at different sites across the country, they want to make sure that those investments are being well spent. That means that the funds are going to real progress and that real progress is happening thanks to all of you.”
