ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A panel of EM and contractor officials from two cleanup sites and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) shared recent achievements during the “Path to EM Successes in 2018" session at this year’s National Cleanup Workshop.
Ken Picha, acting Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Field Operations, moderated the panel. He told the audience there were more than 100 cleanup sites when the EM program began nearly 30 years ago. Only 16 remain, but they are the tough ones, he said.
EM is focused on risk reduction cleanup activities that are safe, environmentally friendly, and cost effective, Picha said. Key areas include tank waste remediation at the Savannah River, Hanford and Idaho sites, safe receipt and management of special nuclear materials, soil and groundwater remediation, and facility decommissioning, he said.
Picha noted recent accomplishments from around the DOE complex, including the Los Alamos Site’s safe treatment of nitrate salt drums and WIPP’s receipt of more than 12,000 shipments. The Oak Ridge Site broke ground for a mercury treatment facility, and EM finished remediating a large burial ground at the Hanford Site, not far from the Columbia River, he said.
Todd Shrader, manager of the Carlsbad Field Office, and Bruce Covert, president and project manager of WIPP’s management and operations contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, discussed a new ventilation system being installed at WIPP.
“We realize our mission is different in that we are here for everyone else," Shrader said. “We want to help enable the closure of all the other sites, and we are looking at ways to streamline our processes going forward."
Covert said the ventilation system should be fully operational by 2021.
Doug Shoop, manager of Richland Operations Office, and Ty Blackford, president and CEO of contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company, spoke about recent accomplishments in retrieving sludge from a storage basin located near the Columbia River.
Shoop said one of the last challenges in the 220-square-mile River Corridor is the K Reactor. When plutonium production ceased, about 2,100 metric tons of fuel elements were left in the K East and K West basins.
“Although under water, the deteriorating fuel rods in both basins resulted in the formation of a material called ‘sludge,’ consisting of tiny fuel corrosion particles, fuel rod fragments, other metal fragments, wind-blown sand, and other materials," he said.
Workers processed the 2,100 metric tons of fuel and transferred the sludge in K East Basin to K West Basin because of strong indicators that K East Basin had been leaking and spreading contamination underneath, according to Shoop. Workers dewatered and demolished the K East Basin and cleaned the associated waste site, so now the challenge is dealing with the sludge in the K West Basin, he said.
“We realized in the transfer of sludge from K East to K West Basin that the sludge was very difficult to move," Shoop said. “It is very corrosive and has lots of different particle sizes that make it very challenging to deal with."
Shoop said it was helpful to use a mock-up building called the Maintenance and Storage Facility (MASF) to test procedures and equipment and train workers in a non-hazardous environment.
Blackford discussed the logistics of retrieving the sludge from K West Basin, which is being transferred to the T-Plant near the site’s center to await final disposition.
He said crews have retrieved three full containers of sludge. Using MASF to prove technology and train workers supported progress in the project, he added.
“There is still a lot of work to do on this project," Blackford said. “We will finish removing the sludge and begin deactivating the basin by 2019, then we will remove the basin by 2023, and finish all response actions in the 100 K Area by 2024."
Michael Budney, manager of the Savannah River Site (SRS), and Stuart MacVean, president and CEO of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the SRS management and operations contractor, talked about the capabilities of the site’s nuclear materials program, which has three unique aspects:
H Canyon is the only production scale radiochemical processing plant in the U.S.
K Area is EM’s only Category 1 special nuclear materials storage facility designated for interim safe storage of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.
L Basin has the capacity to receive, bundle, and store Material Test Reactor type fuels and High Flux Isotope Reactor fuels.
“As far as challenges, some of these buildings were built 60 years ago, and these missions remain dynamic," Budney said. “Also, infrastructure needs have been deferred to maintain critical operations, and we’ve got a lot of roof that needs replaced across the site."
MacVean said H Canyon is processing three uranium streams for the first time ever. The work has required additional hiring, he said. SRNS has brought on 2,286 new, full-service employees since fiscal year 2014 and will need about 450 new employees a year for the next four years.
“I’m really excited to see a lot of materials moving though the plant in this next fiscal year," MacVean said. “We have a national asset when it comes to nuclear fuel processing. We have a great record, and we are bringing on a new crop of folks who are learning how to achieve the same kinds of results."
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
