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While holding out hope that the U.S. Department of Energy will provide the necessary funding to keep cleanup work on track and prevent layoffs at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup said Wednesday that people directly involved with the plant understand the reality of the situation.

Wenstrup spent Wednesday in Pike County and met with those involved in the process, including Pike County commissioners, Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board and unions handling the decontamination and decommissioning work.

“I think there’s quite a bit of realistic approach to what is taking place,” Wenstrup said. “We talked about possibilities that exist and the possibilities that we seem to have exhausted already. We talked about how basically the Ohio delegation is pretty much in lock-step with trying to make something happen in Washington, and in many ways (it) came down to the Department of Energy and how we need to long-term convince them and show them that this needs to take place as far as the cleanup and the economic opportunities that are there not only for Pike County, but the country as well.”

The cleanup is facing the potential of a $110 million funding shortfall that, if not filled, likely would result in layoffs for as many as 650 workers of Fluor-B&W and its subcontractors at the site. Since the gap was announced, members of Ohio’s congressional delegation have been trying to persuade DOE officials to keep funding levels where they are, or to increase them. Letter-writing campaigns also have been launched from the local level to DOE and members of Congress.

Wenstrup has extended an invitation for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to visit Piketon and see the work being done there. However, he has yet to receive a response.

“I would like the secretary to be able to assess the situation for himself and to look people in the eye and say, ‘This is what we’re doing,’” Wenstrup said. “I think sometimes it’s too easy for people in Washington to make decisions and, when they’re not in the trenches, it doesn’t seem fair. There’s a lot of people working hard to make some good things happen and we’d like to have them here to engage with those people.”

Stressing the long-term economic benefits of getting the site cleaned up to allow its re-use — possibly tied to alternative energy sources — is an argument that has to be driven home, Wenstrup added.

“When I was on the House floor speaking at one point, we wanted to pay for the amendment I wanted to put in to increase the funding (for the cleanup) by taking from the renewables (energy sources),” he said. “I said, ‘Let me point out that this area can’t even engage in that (renewable energy production) until this is cleaned up,’ and so there’s a paralysis here for the entire community and it has a large reach.”

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