Hanford Layoff Numbers ‘Speculation’

No one is sure how many additional jobs will be cut at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation early next year, but additional cuts appear likely.

Rumors of 700-750 layoffs in early January and 1,000 or more next spring are wrong, said Hank Hatch, president of Fluor Daniel Hanford, the new manager of the federal site.

“We’re far from having answers to many of the questions and rumors that have surfaced during the past few days,” Hatch said Thursday. “No one has put a figure on the number of layoffs … and any numbers being bantered around are idle speculation.”

John Wagoner, who runs Hanford for the U.S. Department of Energy, called pending layoffs “fine tuning.”

Nearly 5,600 jobs have been eliminated at Hanford in the past two years through resignations, voluntary retirements and layoffs. The site used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons, and workers are now engaged in cleaning up radioactive wastes.

Fluor and its partners have begun a detailed review of budgets they inherited.

If the review finds a work-force reduction is needed, employees will be notified next month, he said.

Any employees getting pink slips who have worked at Hanford since September 1991 would be eligible for the severance and other benefits offered under a federal work-force restructuring program.

Some of those layoffs likely will come from the nuclear Tank Waste Remediation System, which Wagoner confirmed faces a budget shortfall in this fiscal year of about $64 million. The tank waste system is the single largest project at Hanford.