Fermi 2 struggles with large COVID-19 outbreak among workers

A large COVID -19 outbreak among employees at Fermi 2 nuclear power plant has led to mandated testing of every employee at the facility, which will remain shutdown indefinitely.

Employee online Facebook accounts suggest up to 10 per cent of the 2,000 employees at the plant in Monroe, Mich., may have tested positive or be facing quarantine to date due to the virus, but DTE Energy, which operates the facility, would not confirm an exact number.

Fermi 2 launched its regularly scheduled maintenance outage on March 21. Usually the “refuelling ” and upgrades at the plant take about six weeks to complete. But the virus outbreak has prolonged that shutdown. There is no timeline when the nuclear plant will restart full operations.

“While the company is not releasing specific numbers, the totals suggest that some workers may have had the virus without showing symptoms,” said Stephen Tait, spokesman for DTE Energy.

“On April 30, we learned that some employees in a specific work group tested positive for COVID -19. To further understand what happened, and for the health and safety of all people at the location, plant leadership acted immediately to implement a plan to test all Fermi employees and supplemental workers, over 2,000 in all, in three days. With that testing we did see positive cases, which is expected when you test any large population of people.”

Fermi 2 sits across Lake Erie about 10 km away from Amherstburg which would be affected should any incident occur, along with areas of Lasalle and Windsor.

DTE Energy has launched several actions upon learning of the outbreak, including enhanced cleaning of all areas of the plant, temperature screenings for all personnel entering the site, mandatory face-mask usage while on site and promoting physical and social distancing practices, Tait said.

Some of the planned maintenance work resumed on May 4, he said.

“DTE is conducting contact tracing for all employees who tested positive and will notify others who may have been near these employees and potentially exposed to the virus,” Tait said. “In addition, the company is following up regularly with those who have tested positive or are symptomatic and in quarantine.”

The company has activated “site-specific plans” to ensure the nuclear plant’s operations and infrastructure are supported properly during the “stand down” period, he said.