Not everyone would consider processing some of the hottest radioactive waste around to be a desirable job.
Try telling that to the hundreds of folks who turned out for a recent Jobs Fair hosted by EnergX, the company that operates the U.S. Department of Energy's Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge.
All that for what's expected to be only 76 jobs to be filled at the plant.
"I was stunned," EnergX CEO Tony Buhl said about the turnout earlier in March. The line for interviews left the double hotel ballrooms, snaked down the hall and outside into the parking lot, and then wrapped around the building.
Buhl said the Oak Ridge jobs fair was an effort to get a pool of workers for new shifts at the waste-processing center. The hirings will take place after Oak Ridge gets federal economic stimulus money and the Energy department gives the go-ahead, he said.
He said 33 EnergyX employees were on hand to help interview job candidates, and there were 2,581 interviews conducted at the 6-hour job fair. Some people interviewed for more than one job.
The TRU waste facility currently has about 180 employees. There is a plan, once the stimulus money arrives, to add another 12-hour shift, and a third shift for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
"That would allow you to catch up on maintenance and get the feedstocks ready for (waste processing) on Monday," Buhl said.
The hottest wastes are handled remotely in heavily shielded hot cells. In other areas of the plant, the transuranic wastes -- which are particularly long-lived and extremely hazardous -- are handled in glove boxes, which are protectively sealed containers into which workers insert their glove-shrouded hands. In other areas, workers dressed in oxygen-supplied "bubble suits" sort the waste so that it can be characterized and segregated according to type.
Ultimately, the wastes -- generated over the decades during nuclear operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- will be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
Buhl said he was impressed at the quality of the job-seekers, not just the quantity. But he said the experience was bittersweet, as he walked up and down the lines talking to people, to hear of plant closings in the area and to hear from workers looking for just about any job available.
Once the federal money arrives to add shifts at Oak Ridge, EnergX will do the hirings and then began the training process, which will take at least a couple of months, he said.
The plant is to introduce them to the work, spreading the shift work to include experienced workers with the newbies.
"We will always have experienced people leading the task on site," Buhl said.
(Frank Munger writes for The Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee.)
Despite the handling of
Despite the handling of extremely hazardous jobs, the reality of this shows the seriousness and extent of this economic recessions. In this day and age, a good job is hard to come by. A stable job is even harder to come by. I know many people who are getting laid off and those who are already laid off. Many are spending months in trying to obtain even the most simple of jobs. It was the greed of the American people that lead to this economic downfall.
cargo
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