Deactivation and remediation workers with Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership (FRNP), the prime cleanup contractor at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP), recently surpassed one million work hours without a lost-time accident or illness.

“Accomplishing one million safe work hours requires workers to stay focused on the tasks and pay attention to details,” said Jennifer Woodard, Paducah Site lead for EM’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. “EM is focused on safety, and we intend to send workers home each day in the same condition in which they arrived at work.”

Workers at the Paducah Site are given authority to stop work when they feel it cannot be performed safely. This is a key component of the site’s Integrated Safety Management System (ISMS). ISMS is a five-step method that calls for defining the scope of work, identifying and analyzing hazards, developing and implementing hazard controls, performing work within those controls, and providing feedback for continuous improvement.

“The health and safety of our employees and subcontractors is our number-one priority," FRNP Program Manager Myrna Redfield said. "Our goal is to have zero incidents, which means zero injuries, accidents, and unplanned events. This goal can be achieved only with the commitment of every member of our team putting safety first.”

Approximately 840 employees work for FRNP, which was awarded its EM contract in 2017. PGDP is located on a 3,556-acre federal site where uranium enrichment operations were conducted from 1952 to 2013. DOE began cleanup at the site in 1988. Deactivation of the uranium enrichment facilities began in 2014.