The Energy Department on Monday fired a top official overseeing the cleanup of decades’ worth of pollution left over from nuclear weapons development and nuclear research.
Roger Jarrell was terminated from his position as principal deputy assistant secretary of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the Energy Department confirmed.
Jarrell, a lawyer who also served during Trump’s first term, was also tapped earlier this year to serve as the office’s acting assistant secretary.
DOE, when firing Jarrell, cited Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s desire to go in a “different direction” on the Hanford cleanup in Washington state, according to a person with knowledge of the event, granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
They said they believe DOE leadership wants to ax the so-called Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant Project, or WTP, a project that aims to clean up radioactive waste at the site along the Columbia River that could cost up to $30 billion and has taken almost three decades to build.
“I think they want kill WTP altogether, even though it’s [close to being operational],” the person said.
“We can confirm that Roger Jarrell is no longer with the Department,” said a DOE spokesperson. “DOE does not comment on the details of personnel decisions as a matter of policy. DOE remains committed to the safe cleanup and remediation of the Hanford site. Our policy position on this site has not changed.”
Hanford is the site of a costly and longstanding cleanup effort that made its way into Project 2025, a conservative blueprint that aligns with many of the administration’s policies.
The complex, originally established in the 1940s for the Manhattan Project, is now home to almost 200 tanks containing 57 million gallons of high-level nuclear waste left over from weapons production.
DOE has ongoing contracts with multiple companies to clean up the site. That includes building WTP, a facility that was designed to take atomic stew from the tanks and — using high heat and sand — turn the material into glass for disposal. In May, DOE revealed the plant was in the process of simulating final testing and nearing operation.
The Project 2025 playbook calls for DOE to use cement or grout to treat all low-level waste, including at Hanford. The WTP, however, is designed to turn all of the tank waste, both high level and low level, into glass.
West Coast lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, who opposed Wright’s appointment to lead DOE, have repeatedly pushed the secretary to confirm he will uphold the cleanup of the site under an existing legal framework.
Cantwell at Wright’s confirmation hearing in January warned that White House officials in the past have tried to find cheaper and faster ways to clean up Hanford, but those proposals usually end up in the “trash can.” She also pushed Wright to say whether he would abide by the so-called Tri-Party Agreement.
“Senator, I can’t overstate how critical I think it is to finish the job, finish the cleanup at Hanford,” Wright told Cantwell. “The majority of our country’s plutonium was produced there, not just for World War II, but the post war period and our arsenal today.”
“Hanford gave a lot to this country, and we behind, left a mess, and that needs to be cleaned up,” said Wright.
But Cantwell pushed back and called on Wright to abide by the legal framework.
“That’s where people get into trouble because someone else tries to redefine the agreement that’s been made, or redefine what is the waste, and reclassify very hazardous waste into something else” and leave the material in leaky tanks or in the ground, she said.
Jarrell was tapped to lead the office in April.
During the first Trump administration, he interfaced with the Office of Environmental Management and DOE leadership, and helped formulate cleanup strategies, according to his online bio.
He previously worked for the United Cleanup Oak Ridge, or UCOR, DOE’s primary contractor responsible for cleaning up the Oak Ridge site, a 30,000-acre complex in Tennessee that was contaminated from work on the Manhattan Project, uranium enrichment and research.
Jarrell also worked as a political consultant; an elected Republican Party official in Lexington, Virginia; and served as the Virginia 6th District director of the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign and chair of the Rockbridge Area Republican Committee, according to his bio.
He has a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Military Institute in international studies and a law degree from Washington and Lee University.
Questions about the Hanford cleanup will now land on Tim Walsh, a Colorado real estate developer, who Trump nominated in March to lead the Office of Environmental Management and is still awaiting confirmation.
Walsh is listed as an advisor at DOE’s Office of Resource Management, according to the agency’s internal registry viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News.
