EM’s Avery Joins Energy Communities Alliance Panel, Tours Paducah Site

Jeff Avery, EM principal deputy assistant secretary, participated in the 2023 Energy Communities Alliance Forum panel. Pictured from left are Jessica Lovering, co-founder/executive director of Good Energy Collective Office of Environmental Management, Jeff Avery, Seth Kirshenberg, moderator and executive director of Energy Communities Alliance, and David Campbell, executive vice president of EnergySolutions.

PADUCAH, Ky.- EMPrincipal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Avery recently toured cleanup operations at the Paducah Sitewhere he met with federal site staff, EM and contractor management, and received updates on deactivation and remediation at the site.

Avery was in Paducah as part of the 2023 Energy Communities AllianceForum where he joined leaders in the energy industry on a panel discussion on leveraging existing infrastructure for future use of EM sites. Avery covered how EM sites are prime locations for clean-energy development with the highly skilled workforce that has supported our missions for decades. Avery also stressed the importance of planning to make the future vision known to the EM workforce so they understand employment opportunities that are likely to be available.

Avery took advantage of the trip to tour the Paducah Site with two primary focus stops at the C-333 Process Building and the C-400 Cleaning Building.

EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Avery, at left, tours the C-333 Process Building with Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Manager Joel Bradburne, right, at the Paducah Site.

Brad Pont, at left, Safety Systems Oversight for DOE Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, leads a tour of a display cell in the C-333 Process Building with EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Avery at the Paducah Site.

Project personnel discussed deactivation in the C-333 Process Building, the largest building on-site, sitting at approximately 1,100 feet long by 970 feet wide and 83 feet high. The first of four process buildings scheduled to undergo future demolition, the deactivation process has benefited from recent D&D success at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office's Portsmouth Siteby using shared site knowledge to improve implementation.

At the deactivated C-400 Cleaning Building, Avery was introduced to the biggest environmental concern at the site and the largest source of contamination to the groundwater plume. Paducah is currently undergoing a decision process that will eliminate the source of offsite groundwater contamination. He also visited the Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride facility, where thousands of DUF6 cylinders are being processed for beneficial reuse or disposal.

The following day, Avery met with labor leadership at the site and from Paducah's Citizen Advisory Board to hear input on upcoming cleanup strategy.