Myrna Espinosa Redfield—Being familiar with all the stakeholders is critical

Abstract

This essay is part of a series of essays that are based on interviews conducted for this special issue with people who practice risk communication related to human or natural hazards as part of their professions.

Ms. Redfield has had a remarkable range of experience in the field of nuclear and radiation technology, directed toward decommissioning, deactivating, remediating, and ultimately closing sites. She has worked both as a program manager within the Department of Energy (DOE), and as a contractor with the DOE at Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Much of her focus has been related to communicating about human health and safety risk reduction to all levels of people from DOE headquarters to DOE sites, to regulators, to workers and unions, and to the public. Her commitment is to everyone, including high school students and interns experiencing their first exposure to environmental remediation and management (see below). This essay focuses on the main communication challenges she embraces and that result in cooperative and collegial relationships. It also describes her commitment to safe and healthy workplaces, and enhanced community relationships.

Ms. Redfield, as the current CEO of the Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership (FRNP), hereafter Partnership (Four Rivers, 2017), is responsible for deactivation and remediation of the Paducah (Kentucky) site. While operating, the mission of the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant was enriching uranium for the US nuclear bomb production, for military nuclear reactors, and for nuclear power plants. Along with the sister DOE facility in Portsmouth, Ohio, uranium enrichment ended at Paducah in 2013, and the facilities previously operated by a contractor reverted to DOE’s Environmental Management programs. Ms. Redfield’s position entails meeting milestones to complete the cleanup. Ensuring a safe and healthy workplace is key to meeting the Partnership’ goals. Communication between the cleanup tasks at Paducah and Portsmouth is also critical to their progress.

As Portsmouth is about 10 years ahead of us in the remediation and deactivation of their site, we are taking the opportunity to learn from them. Their teams’ technical expertise and experience has helped guide us through our cleanup mission, allowing us to enhance technologies and to identify opportunities for process improvements.

The approach taken by DOE personnel and contractors at Paducah and Portsmouth illustrates the importance of communication among similarly contaminated sites, both in terms of technical challenges and solutions, and community/stakeholder involvement. She describes public trust of the science and communications as a critical component of environmental management at these sites. Earning public trust is difficult when you are inside a security fence, which usually precludes using social media and limits interpersonal contacts. DOE has therefore developed a variety of communication processes, including phone and personal interviews, printed media, and when possible, public meetings.

1 |. COMMUNICATING AT ALL LEVELS IS MOST OF THE JOB

Ms. Redfield’s role as the CEO of the Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership places her in position where she regularly communicates with all levels within her organization, with DOE headquarters and sites, with federal and state regulators, and with various public groups. She notes that the DOE officials in headquarters are interested in different aspects of their mission than the local community and the media. Ms. Redfield said she recognizes that stakeholders have a wide range of knowledge and experiences and are interested in different aspects of the work. One message and approach does not work with all audiences.

Defining the message can be challenging, as each of our stakeholders takes interest in different aspects of the work we perform. However, the best way we can communicate is to ensure we understand the values and needs of the individuals with whom we are communicating.

She emphasized the importance of understanding what the audience wants to know and providing them with credible information that they understand. She further emphasized the need to use terms that are understandable, limit jargon, and share scientifically grounded information. She added that she knows what it is like to need a clear explanation.

Spanish was my first language, and at first, I needed things explained in simple terms that were easy to follow. I remember that lesson; always consider the audience and describe our goals, operations and challenges clearly.

Ms. Redfield explained that most of her day is spent communicating with people at many different levels. For example, when reporters call and need an answer quickly, Ms. Redfield and her team work with DOE to provide relevant information that will help reporters accurately communicate with the public.

FRNP also supports DOE with the monthly Paducah’s Citizens Advisory Board meetings. At these public meetings, DOE shares updates on cleanup progress at the Paducah site and the Partnership regularly provides technical updates on remediation and deactivation projects. Their relationship to the community extends beyond the CAB to a strong relationship that she believes the Partnership has developed with community leaders at the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce. Each year, the Partnership supports the Chamber of Commerce during its federal and state legislative trips. The Partnership’s involvement in these events has helped the community to obtain information and funding to support their annual priorities at both the federal and state levels. In addition to local CAB meetings, DOE sponsors meetings among CABs of different DOE sites, which allows for information transfer about technical issues, as well as communication and risk issues. This year, the 2022 annual CAB meeting was hosted in Paducah.

2 |. GETTING THE JOB DONE WITHIN A SAFETY CULTURE

The Partnership holds frequent internal meetings with union members. One of the messages that resonated throughout our discussion with Ms. Redfield was the significance of openness and communication throughout planning and operations for every activity. She stressed the importance of everyone being involved in the safety culture, from administrative assistants to the people in the buildings doing the on-the-ground cleanup. Many of the tasks essential to deactivation and remediation of any DOE site are inherently risky because they are dealing with chemical and radiological cleanup, as well as heavy equipment and facility structural integrity. Of all federal agencies, DOE has been emerging as a leader in adopting and living a safety culture. The understanding of a safety culture has ramified throughout DOE. “It’s in our DNA” (Granholm 2021), and has been adopted at all levels of DOE (2022).

Risks are reduced by making sure everyone knows every step of the scope of work and what the work entails. We encourage our teams to analyze the hazards and implement controls to protect them. This includes identifying any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that is needed and ensuring the roles and responsibilities of each team member has been thoroughly communicated. With these actions in place, our workers have a path forward to safety.

Essentially, the Partnership explains risks to all workers before and during the cleanup work, and also meets to exchange lessons learned. This is true for all workers, regardless of whether they are actually involved in the remediation activity or not. Training, training, and then more training have been keys to reducing risks. Ms. Redfield acknowledged the challenge to balance safety against the schedule for accomplishing the mission. One important principle was that every employee knows that s/he can pause the work if they have a safety question.

Risks can be reduced by ensuring that the planning considers employee health and safety first and foremost throughout the process. Every employee needs to know that they can pause the work if they feel unsafe. Then the issue is addressed before work continues.

Supervisors and employees face this safety culture challenge together at every phase from planning to execution. For example, Ms. Redfield mentioned that if someone notes that there is an unanticipated contaminant in the lines or pipes needing remediation, operations would cease until they examined the potential presence of that contaminant. Another example included an employee who mentioned that they remembered a certain contaminant was used in a process at the Paducah plant that was not part of the remedial plan. Again, planning was “paused” until they could make sure this contaminant was not present or was accounted for in the operations. She mentioned that planning and examining all hazards was a fundamental part of their operations.

To ensure we are living the safety culture, we have conducted three anonymous surveys over the years since our contract started in 2017, asking our employees whether they believed their supervisors were respecting their safety concerns (96% said yes), whether they felt comfortable stopping work for safety concerns (88% said yes) and whether they trusted their supervisor (91% said yes).

Stressing the importance of being able to “pause work” if you feel unsafe has been one of the most important components of this program. Front-line managers are the basis for the work-safety first culture. She lamented, however, that the unavailability of many supervisors during the COVID-19 pandemic due to illness and other factors impacted the Partnership just as it did many other industries (Holland-Parish, 2020; OSHA, 2020; Bodine, 2020). The Partnership’s desire for the employees to have even more trust in their supervisors has led to an enhanced safety culture campaign. Ms. Redfield explains:

In our recent Take Two for safety campaign, we asked people why they wanted to work safely. Most mentioned or brought in pictures of their family, friends, or pets. We placed these on banners around the plant to remind us all why we practice a safety-first workplace. We developed a video that was shared with all of our work-force, to remind us all why we are working safely.

The Take Two for Safety Campaign means when you come to work each day you should take 2 mins to remember why you work safely. This includes all levels of employees, for all jobs. She explained that safety is not only a rule book, but is about the importance of recognizing why you want to be safe, how to be safe, and whether you have all the training and equipment you needed to be safe. This is an important tool in Paducah’s safety culture and in reducing risk. The workers, she noted, understand that deactivation work involves risks.

3 |. COMMUNICATION CHANNELS, MOCK SCENARIOS, AND TESTING THE LIMITS

DOE and the Partnership regularly hold meetings about the safety activities (and potential hazards) at the Paducah Site. These meetings become even more common when they are starting a new campaign or are moving remediation operations into another building or to a different part of a building that was involved in different processes. These communication activities are aimed at their own personnel and other stakeholders. Internal communication is often presented through face-to-face meetings, phone calls, site wide messages, and supervisor meetings with different types of workers. Much of their outside communication is by press releases and community meetings. A Citizens Advisory Board also plays an important role in communicating with the public. They have regular monthly meetings to explain new processes or procedures, and Board members then discuss these with their constituents.

We have a small community, with many opportunities to present our work. We work with the CAB and other members of the public, often answering questions at public meetings.

During the planning phase they consider different scenarios that might impact workers, the public, or the environment. Ms. Redfield said she believes that discussing health and safety concerns before initiating work is a key phase of planning (not an afterthought). The site also has an emergency management group that conducts drills and exercises regularly, both within their company, and with other site contractors and emergency management agencies within the community.

After any drill, or after any event, they have debriefing sessions to discuss what could and could not have been done to foresee the problem, and how to fix it. In this regard, there is a Joint Information Center (JIC) that can be activated in the event of an emergency. The media and others know to go there for information. In addition, when the JIC is activated, there is a public hotline for community members to call in with questions.

Communication is at least 70% of my job. You must discuss things all the time, with all involved workers and other stakeholders. It’s important to keep the information flowing so that everyone understands our mission. Figuring out how to make information flow faster, to more people, is one of our challenges.

4 |. COMMITMENT TO STEM EDUCATION

Ms. Redfield, representing the Partnership and DOE at Paducah, is committed to community participation and to fostering educational progress among students at all levels. One example of a communication approach makes use of the Paducah Annual Environmental Report. The Annual Environmental Reports are required by DOE and are intended to provide the regulators and the public with information on the health and well-being of humans and the environment of the site over the past year, as well as operations and contaminant levels (DOE, 2020). At Paducah, the report is released to the local high school, and during the academic year the high school students produce a report about Paducah’s Annual Report. The Marshall County High School report is extensive, with lots of pictures of the Paducah plant and operations, as well as of the students. It is then made available to the community, so that it is both an important learning tool for the students and also informative for the community. Some of these students become interns at the site. The high school is located in nearby Marshall County, which encourages interactions not possible at some of DOE’s more remote sites.

We at the Partnership are quite proud of our interns. Some have gone on to college in engineering and environmental management, and several have come back to work at Paducah. One of our interns came to the Partnership, moved up through the ranks, and has just been promoted to a Manager position.

Ms. Redfield presents talks to schools and other civic groups, and tries to serve as a role model for students, interns and employees moving up through the ranks. Her commitment to environmental cleanup within a framework of protecting human health and the environment includes an important component of public outreach and communication. As noted earlier, she has worked at Paducah in one capacity or another for almost 30 years, making only short forays to work at Oak Ridge. She is known within the community and knows her stakeholders at all levels, and is equally committed to reducing future needs for crisis-oriented risk communication by ensuring the health and safety of workers, site neighbors and other communities. She believes in prevention by careful planning, gathering and presenting credible knowledge, and the assurance that anyone can “stop or pause” work if they do not feel safe. It is a small community, and safety of the workers goes a long way to ensuring public safety and trust.

Our number one goal is to make sure our workers return home to their families in the same condition in which they arrived at work.

5 |. KEY COMMUNICATION LESSONS

• Have a clear message.

• Know your audience.

• Listen to your audience.

• Questions are part of your work. Answer them clearly and directly.

• Be sure that you present information so people can understand it. (Remember English is not everyone’s first language, and science isn’t either).

• Focus communication on facts.

• Preparation is key to any presentation and to adequately responding to questions.

• Allow people to ask questions, and for others to ask them again.

Biography

Myrna Espinosa Redfield has over 30 years of experience in the leadership of complex projects in the nuclear industry. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a Bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. Thereafter, she worked for the Department of Energy at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Kentucky) in the Site Office, which included working with the site-specific advisory board. These boards meet regularly, represent the community, and provide the Department of Energy with a broad perspective and advice on the activities of the site, including future land uses. Although she spent several years at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, she has primarily worked at Paducah developing her portfolio of processes including communicating with stakeholders. She has served at Paducah in various technical and leadership roles on multi-million-dollar Department of Energy contracts, and organized leaders in establishing strong client relationships to implement programs and strategies to address difficult remediation and technical challenges. For the past 3 years, Ms. Redfield has served as the President/CEO for the Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, on a 1.4 billion-dollar deactivation and remediation project at Paducah. She is currently responsible for the contract performance and safety of more than 950 personnel, including two unions.