HANFORD — Ty Rose came home from Iraq last year with new
leadership skills he thought would translate into a job stateside.
But
it took creating new jobs with federal economic stimulus money for him
to find work, he told Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Thursday. She was at
the HAMMER training and education center to see how American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act money was being spent that she fought to have
allocated for Hanford cleanup.
Since $1.96 billion in stimulus
money was designated for environmental cleanup at the Hanford nuclear
reservation, more than 35,000 people have applied for the jobs,
according to the Department of Energy.
The money has provided work for about 5,600 people so far. However,
that includes people whose jobs are only partially paid for with
stimulus money or those who may have had just short-term or part-time
work. When new work is figured in 40-hour per week increments, it
translates to 2,500 full-time jobs created or saved, according to the
Department of Energy.
Rose is a good example of how that money has
helped families struggling in the poor economy, Murray said.
“I
never thought in a million years I would have trouble finding a job,”
Rose said. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served in Iraq
as a platoon commander with the Marine Corps.
But he found that
he was competing for work with people who had 15 or 20 years of
experience before they lost their jobs.
His life changed when he
went to a service academy career conference in Washington, D.C.,
researching CH2M Hill in advance as a company for which he’d like to
work and visiting its table first at the conference.
The company
offered him a job at Hanford and he accepted. Rose, who grew up in
Tennessee, moved to the Tri-Cities in June and a month later his wife,
whose job as a teacher was in jeopardy, joined him from North Carolina.
They’ve since bought a house in Pasco and are raising two kittens.
Rose
works in the area near Hanford’s K Reactors as a field work supervisor,
a job that he said takes attention to detail and an ability to work
with people.
In the political world, there may be debate about how
effective the recovery act has been.
But Rose said, “I can tell
you the recovery work money is helping us out.”
The nation has a
long way to go until families and communities fully recover from the
worst economic climate since the Great Depression, Murray said. But the
spending at Hanford shows that the stimulus package is helping by
putting people like Rose to work and getting the economy going again,
she said.
Washington is third in the nation in jobs created by
stimulus money, she said. The Tri-Cities has been the big beneficiary in
the state with about $224 million of the stimulus money for Hanford
spent to date.
It’s meant parents going back to work to provide
for their families. And they’re spending money, reducing small-business
owners’ worries about having to hand out pink slips, she said. It’s why
the value of homes in the Tri-Cities remains strong, she said.
At
Hanford “work is getting done and it is getting done safely,” said Dave
Brockman, manager of the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office.
Large
chemical tanks have been demolished, work has started to expand a large
landfill for low-level radioactive waste, buildings have come down,
wells have been drilled for projects to clean up ground water, and
contaminated glove boxes have been pulled out of the Plutonium Finishing
Plant with stimulus money, he said.
At the DOE Office of River
Protection, stimulus money is being used to rebuild an antiquated
support system that will be needed to move radioactive waste to the
vitrification plant for treatment once the plant is finished, said
Shirley Olinger, manager of the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection.
CH2M
Hill Plateau Remediation Co., the DOE contractor responsible for
central Hanford cleanup, has received the largest portion of the
stimulus money at Hanford and has doubled its work force since the start
of its contract 13 months ago. It continues to hire new workers.
“We
have created jobs,” said John Lehew, the company’s president. “We’re
reducing life cycle costs and we’re reducing the overall cleanup
footprint of the Hanford site.”
Most of the economic stimulus
money is expected to be spent within two years. Then annual budgets,
which have averaged about $2 billion a year at Hanford, will help
determine how many new workers still will have jobs at Hanford.
But
workers like Rose will have experience and skills that will help them
compete in the job market, Murray said. And even though the stimulus
money will be spent, work on some Hanford projects will continue for
decades, Murray pointed out.
Rose is optimistic. He learns more
about Hanford work each day and knows that many of Hanford’s workers
hired before stimulus money became available are nearing retirement age.
“There
are going to be openings,” he said. “I will have a couple years of
exact experience.”
Murray toured the HAMMER center, observing a
class where new Hanford employees were learning how to correctly seal up
clothing to protect them against hazardous substances during cleanup
work. The site has radioactive and hazardous chemical contamination.
As
the work force has expanded, the HAMMER center has helped prepare
thousands of workers to safely work on the nuclear reservation, said
Karen McGinnis, HAMMER director.
Murray also toured Delta High
School in Richland and had been scheduled to see Kadlec Regional Medical
Center’s new $7.4 million pediatric center. However, her plane was
diverted to Walla Walla and she had to shorten her schedule, missing the
tour of the Richland hospital’s soon-to-open children’s center.
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