Hanford Site, Tribes Raise Awareness of Culturally Significant Resources With Training Site
Julie Longenecker, left, and Jill Conrad, center, watch Keith Mendez handle obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass, which is part of a simulated fire hearth at the cultural test beds site.
RICHLAND, Wash. – About seven acres in size, the cultural resources test beds site is a small area of the 586-square-mile Hanford site. But its impact is big.
It could one day become a national model for training in the detection and preservation of culturally significant sites. Hundreds of people — from police officers and judges to business executives and Girl Scouts — have received instruction at the site over the years, helping raise awareness of the importance of cultural sites located aboveground and underground.
“I would hope we could train enough people so there would never be an inadvertent discovery again,” said CRPP Hanford Cultural Resources Coordinator Julie Longenecker, an anthropologist who focuses on bone identification. “That’s the goal for me personally.”
The test beds consist of a variety of simulated cultural features, such as fire hearths and cairns (piles of rocks used, for example, to mark trails and caches of dried meat), arrowheads and other stone tools, remains of a pit house, and a historic dumping site with old farm equipment and bottles.
“Out of respect for real archeological sites, we simulated these sites so they could be used for training,” Longenecker said. “That resonates with us a lot.”
Surrounded by the sagebrush and bunch grasses of Washington’s desert, the test beds are situated in a unique location between Rattlesnake Mountain and the Columbia River, not far from Hanford’s cocooned nuclear reactors. It’s an area known for nutrient-rich plants, berries, and wildlife, where people have lived for thousands of years.
“We know the Hanford site, this stretch of the Columbia River, has been very important to anybody who has lived here at least 10,000 years. We have reason to believe people have been here much longer than that,” said Keith Mendez, a Hanford site contractor who works as a cultural resources specialist. Mendez has used the test beds site for testing sampling methodologies at Hanford.
The federal government set aside land for the test beds in 1996 in response to Tribal requests. The following year, CTUIR led the design, construction, and maintenance of the site with help from other Tribes. Training began there in 1998, and EM and CTUIR entered into a memorandum of understanding regarding use of the site.
The test beds are located at Hanford’s Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response (HAMMER) facility, which provides the training opportunities and facilities that support the Hanford site’s missions and workforce. Operated by Hanford site services contractor Mission Support Alliance, HAMMER’s slogan is “Training as real as it gets.”
That slogan is reflected in the test beds. “We built these sites as real as they get,” Longenecker said.
Jill Conrad, EM’s Richland Operations Office Tribal Program Manager of five years, said the Tribes had great foresight to develop the test beds site at Hanford’s training headquarters.
‘The Tribes have been involved at HAMMER from the start, and they still are. This is one tangible indication of HAMMER’s willingness to work with them and the symbiotic relationship HAMMER has had with the Tribes,” she said of the test beds.
On a recent sunny day, Conrad, Mendez, and Longenecker walked through the site. There’s only one small path in and out to protect the simulated cultural sites and data collection efforts under way.
“People have a much greater understanding when they’re seeing it for themselves, and hearing it from the Tribal people — the importance — and then, the light bulb goes off,” Conrad said as she stood next to a test bed Longenecker was describing. The test bed was created with a backhoe, which pushed into the earth to simulate the inadvertent discovery of human remains.
Conrad added, “We have Tribal people we collaborate and partner with. We hope we can continue some training so people can have a hands-on experience and get the Tribal experience.”
In 2013, the Richland Operations Office, its contractor, Washington Closure Hanford, and Tribal monitors used the cultural test beds to practice taking samples for contamination in a sensitive cultural site. This experience allowed samplers, archaeologists, and Tribal monitors to practice techniques and protocols.
CRPP has been in operation at the test beds site since 1996. Longenecker recalled trainings CRPP held related to the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 for law enforcement officials and others that began in 1998. “It was unique in that it was all taught from a Tribal perspective. It was a success,” she said.
Training also went well for employees of Bonneville Power Administration, a federal nonprofit agency that markets wholesale electrical power from 31 federal hydro projects in the Columbia River Basin. Training that agency’s managers was “most fulfilling for me,” Longenecker said.
She recalled working with Jeff Van Pelt, a former CRPP program manager, who invested a great deal of time and thought into establishing the test beds and teaching Longenecker the Tribal perspective. CRPP’s tribal field crew, which maintains the test beds, spent thousands of hours building the site’s props and making sure the simulated archaeological sites were just right, Longenecker said.
In addition, CRPP designed and conducted the trainings. Teara Farrow Ferman, CRPP’s program manager of the past 10 years, continues to promote trainings and additional props. She ensures the site receives the care and exposure it needs to be successful in the future, Longenecker said.
CRPP and HAMMER’s Det Wegener were among those recognized for the test beds training efforts as part of the Washington State Historic Preservation Officer’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Historic Preservation in 2003.
Wegener, who works as HAMMER’s Tribal Programs Manager on a part-time basis, helped establish the site.
“Our whole purpose is to find and preserve, not find and dig up,” he said. “We’ve taught people how to look at an area and say, ‘This is culturally significant.’”
Workers with Richland Operations Office contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company load a piece of glovebox into a large standard waste box for transportation and disposal. The glovebox was removed from Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, a former plutonium processing plant workers are preparing for demolition.
RICHLAND, Wash. – In 2011, EM’s Richland Operations Office faced issues common throughout the federal government: a future of fiscal restraint and the desire to complete more work with fewer dollars.
The solution employees developed — an easy-to-use online tool — has helped save more than $1 billion in the River and Plateau cleanup at Hanford.
“We wanted something that would easily engage contractors and federal employees to be able to provide good ideas that would make any facet of cleanup better,” Richland Operations Office River and Plateau Deputy Assistant Manager Jon Peschong said. “The areas could be in HR, procurement, legal, or in the cleanup itself.”
Cleanup in the 220-square-mile River Corridor has consisted of removing special nuclear material, “cocooning” eight large reactors, cleaning out and demolishing hundreds of buildings, and excavating more than 1,000 waste sites. The 75-square mile Central Plateau is where the site’s five chemical separations facilities and plutonium metal and oxides production facility operated. They left a legacy of hundreds of contaminated buildings, hundreds of waste sites, and extensive contamination in the groundwater.
The River and Plateau team developed an online dashboard to enter ideas for implementation, cost/benefit analyses, money saving measures, and cost avoidances. Once an idea is entered, it is analyzed by management. If given a go-ahead, a proposal is produced with estimated costs savings or avoidance, implementation time, and a list of needed employees. If approved, the ideas will be implemented.
A large reason the initiative took off quickly was the fact that cleanup project employees helped shape it. Brett Simpson was a principal chemical engineer on the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) Integrated Project Team and a key member of the dashboard team when employees noticed that transportation of transuranic waste from demolition of Hanford’s PFP to Hanford’s Central Waste Complex was being done exclusively through the use of 55-gallon drums. The team noted that considerable extra effort and time was being spent to reduce the size of materials to fit in the drums.
The larger standard waste boxes, shown left, can hold more waste than the 55-gallon drums, shown bottom right. The larger containers can carry the same amount as almost nine drums.
Simpson logged onto the dashboard to recommend using much larger standard waste boxes employed in the Savannah River Site cleanup. Further research determined the larger containers complied with Hanford transportation rules, increased safety due to less cutting to reduce material size, carried the same amount as almost nine drums, and saved a minimum of $20 million. The idea was implemented.
“Since the dashboard tool was created, we’ve demonstrated traceable results and have seen almost $1.1 billion in savings or cost avoidance over the lifecycle of the cleanup project,” said Peschong. “More than 150 ideas are being implemented, and it’s become such an important part of our culture that we’ve incorporated using the tool into our annual performance reviews.”
EM Prepares Report for Convention on Safety of Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management
WASHINGTON, D.C. – EM supported DOE in its role as the lead technical agency to produce a report recently for the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.
The Convention was established in 2001 as the first instrument to directly address issues related to the safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste on a global scale. EM officials believe the Convention is an important vehicle for achieving and maintaining a high level of safety worldwide in spent fuel and radioactive waste management.
This Fifth United States of America National Report satisfies requirements of the Convention for reporting on the status of safety at spent fuel and radioactive waste management facilities within the U.S. It was prepared by a working group of staff members from DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Convention calls for review meetings of its contracting parties. These parties, which signed the treaty for the Convention and represent 69 countries throughout the world, are required to submit a national report to each review meeting that addresses measures taken to implement obligations of the Convention.
David Huizenga, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, serves as president for the fifth review meeting. Huizenga negotiated the original treaty for the Convention and co-led the U.S. delegation for the fourth review meeting.
The report updates the fourth report for the Convention published in October 2011.
Workers Will Clean Up Groundwater Contamination Source With Deep Soil Mixing
PADUCAH, Ky. – Beginning in January 2015, EM and its Paducah site cleanup contractor, LATA Environmental Services of Kentucky, LLC (LATA Kentucky), will treat groundwater contamination with deep soil mixing, which uses an eight-foot-diameter auger to mix the soil to a depth of about 60 feet.
“This work will complete another significant step in our mission of cleaning up the site and protecting human health and the environment,” said David Dollins, Paducah site groundwater project manager for EM’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office.
The two-acre cleanup zone, located in the southwestern part of the site’s fenced area, was used in the 1970s as an oil landfarm. Landfarming was an acceptable industry practice that used lime and fertilizer to biodegrade waste oils containing the contaminant trichloroethene (TCE), a degreaser commonly used until 1993 that has contaminated the shallow soils.
During soil mixing, steam will be injected through the auger, evaporating and removing the TCE to be recovered at the surface and captured in a treatment system. Following steam treatment, reactive iron will be injected into the treatment area to degrade any residual TCE in the soil. A total of 262 separate drillings will be required in the treatment area.
This approximately 200-ton crawler crane equipped with a deep soil mixing auger control system is similar to one that will be used to clean up an old oil landfarm area at the Paducah site.
Radiological control technicians Tiffany Jackson (foreground) and Tim Loyd (background) perform Global Positioning System-based radiological surveys.
LATA Kentucky heavy equipment operators Rick Johnson (background excavator), Brad Langston (bulldozer), and Tim Moore (tractor and scraper pan at right) move dirt as part of site excavation.
A roughly 200-ton crane equipped with a lattice boom that supports a drilling attachment will provide the power to turn the auger and mix the soil. The crane is scheduled to be delivered in December 2014 and will be supported by several trailers and pieces of skid-mounted equipment to generate steam, prepare the iron, treat off-gas and water generated during the treatment, and collect data.
“Extensive work was performed in the summer to prepare the site for cleanup,” said Brad Montgomery, who manages the project for LATA Kentucky. “We started moving equipment the last week of June so crews could begin the first week of July with the site setup, installation of sediment controls, and civil surveying.”
From July to mid-September, workers dug four feet of soil out of the mixing area, inspected it for buried material, conducted radiological surveys, backfilled, and compacted the ground to support heavy machinery.
Workers at Paducah Site Exceed 1.5 Million Hours Without Lost-Time Injury, Illness
A Swift & Staley heavy equipment operator moves salt.
PADUCAH, Ky. – Workers with Paducah site infrastructure contractor Swift & Staley, Inc. recently exceeded 1.5 million hours without lost time away from work due to injury or illness, representing nine years of safe performance.
Swift & Staley’s safety team believes employee involvement in its safety program — and management’s support of it — contributed to the accomplishment. Team members consist of employees from various departments of the company and members of the United Steelworkers of America (USW).
“We are very proud of our team for putting safety first every day,” said Swift & Staley Program Manager Diane Snow. “The accomplishment of this safety milestone is a result of following Swift & Staley’s three irrefutable laws: follow the procedure or stop the job; thoroughness in everything we do; and loyalty to the team.”
Swift & Staley workers install an underground conduit for a security system at the Paducah site.
USW Local 550 President Donna Steele said the local union chapter and its members are proud partners with Swift & Staley in ensuring continued safety of site operations.
“Achieving 1.5 million safe hours over a nine-year period is a tremendous accomplishment, one that could not have been achieved without the commitment of each and every employee to work safely,” she said.
A recognition event is planned to commemorate the milestone and highlight initiatives for continued safe performance.
Swift & Staley is responsible for roads and grounds, records management, information technology, utilities, and other infrastructure support to the other EM contractors at the Paducah site.
Portsmouth Science Alliance Attracts More than 1,000 Students, Educators
High school juniors from throughout southern Ohio participate in the Science Alliance.
PIKETON, Ohio – As assistant principal of Portsmouth West High School, Eric Nichols was aware of EM’s Science Alliance, an interactive science fair aimed at high school juniors in southern Ohio. But this year he decided to get a firsthand look.
Nichols was one of more than 1,100 visitors to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant this month who participated in the fifth annual event that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
“This has opened up a world of possibilities to these students,” Nichols said. “Anytime we can get students out of the classroom and into situations where there are multiple connections among different disciplines, we find that valuable. The Science Alliance has everything and was much more than I expected.”
The students rotated around 13 STEM-related demonstrations, including aerodynamics, digital sound, water quality analysis, and recycling. Representatives from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board (SSAB), the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative, regional universities, Centrus Energy, and EM prime contractors (Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, Restoration Services, Inc., and Wastren-EnergX Mission Support) joined EM in providing demonstrations and other support for the event.
Karyn Downing, a 16-year-old junior from Waverly High School, said the event will make her take a second look at STEM fields of study.
“The things I saw really made me think,” Downing said. “I really like the engineering subjects and I enjoyed learning about the nuclear fuel cycle.”
Her classmate, 17-year-old Thomas DeVelin, said he was glad to know that technical jobs are available close to home.
“There are a lot of good career opportunities here at this plant. I think students realized that you don’t have to go crazy far away to live, that you can work here,” he said. “I think this event opened the eyes and ears of the students who participated.”
Students engage in a model demonstration related to depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion operations. The station was conducted by Babcock & Wilcox Conversion Services, one of EM’s prime contractors at the site.
Students participate in a glove box demonstration that illustrates material handling. The station was conducted by Wastren-EnergX Mission Support.
Greg Simonton, EM’s Science Alliance coordinator, welcomes students to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and encourages them to take a look at fields related to STEM as they consider future career choices.
Greg Simonton, who coordinates the event for EM, said linking students to STEM fields that interest them is only part of the goal. He said the event also tries to make students aware of the associated careers, educational requirements for those jobs, and regional academic institutions that offer those curricula.
“This event allows students in southern Ohio to realize that their parents and grandparents built and operated one of the most technical facilities in the world,” Simonton said. “That illustrates that STEM fields are within their grasp. The United States has a tremendous need for more scientists and engineers for us to be competitive globally, and there’s no reason we can’t address that problem right here in southern Ohio.”
Randy McClay, who has taught at Lucasville Valley High School for 24 years, said it is important for local students to understand the local impact of the Portsmouth plant, including the role it played in the Cold War and its importance in the local economic landscape.
“Our kids need to be aware of where we came from. It’s valuable,” McClay said. “If this community is going to recover, this plant is going to have to play a big role in that.”
The schools participating in the event were Adena, Chillicothe, Eastern Pike, Green, Huntington Ross, Jackson, Lucasville Valley, Oak Hill, Paint Valley, Pike Christian Academy, Piketon, Portsmouth, Portsmouth West, Northwest, Notre Dame, Scioto County Career Technical Center, Sciotoville East, Southeastern, South Webster, Waverly, Wellston, Western Pike and Wheelersburg.
EM Takes on Next Environmental Cleanup Challenge at SRS: Coal-Fired Ash
Restoration of a 90-acre powerhouse ash basin at the Savannah River Site, pictured here, is under way as workers remove tens of millions of gallons of water from the basin.
AIKEN, S.C. – A large, 1950s-era, coal-fired power plant sits cold and dark at the Savannah River Site (SRS), but employees with EM and its management and operations contractor are preparing to clean up the facility’s substantial quantities of ash generated over the decades.
"Partnering with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), we have achieved the cleanup of 85 percent of the site’s area to industrial standards with approval from local and federal regulatory agencies," said Angelia Adams, acting assistant manager for infrastructure and environmental stewardship at the Savannah River Operations Office. "Completing the D Area Ash Basin project is our next major step towards further reducing our site footprint."
Chris Bergren, director of environmental compliance and area completion projects at SRNS, said cleanup of the coal ash is in the best interest of the environment, SRS, and South Carolina.
“This is particularly true given the age of the earthen berms created to make the pond-like basins historically used to store the ash,” he said. “Coal ash represents a potential risk to human health and the environment.”
Workers will ensure the ash landfill and the three adjacent water- and ash-filled basins are left in an environmentally safe condition for the long term. A portion of the 90-acre cleanup site will be used for stormwater collection.
Restoration of the 90 acres is scheduled for completion in 2019. Workers are currently removing tens of millions of gallons of water from the basins.
In the next phase, workers will use heavy equipment to consolidate approximately 1.3 million cubic yards of ash within two designated locations at the worksite. Clean dirt will be placed in the basins and on the ash landfill.
Once ash consolidation is complete, two layers of clay will form a water-impermeable barrier that will be covered by nearly two feet of new soil and planted with grass, which completes the remediation process.
Transfer Lines to Connect Liquid Waste Facilities and Salt Waste Processing Facility
Savannah River Remediation (SRR) Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) Integration Manager Keith Harp (front right) points to the spot where the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste facilities transfer lines will connect to lines from the SWPF, which stands in the background. Looking on are, from left, Frank Sheppard, vice president and deputy project manager of Parsons, the SWPF contractor; EM Construction Oversight Representative Mike Mayo; EM SWPF Federal Project Director Pam Marks; EM SWPF Chief Engineer Robert Leugemors; EM SWPF Quality Assurance Manager David Quattlebaum; Parsons Vice President of Construction Chuck Swain; EM SWPF Construction Manager Teresa Tomac; SRR President and Project Manager Stuart MacVean; EM Waste Disposition Project Acting Assistant Manager Jim Folk; and EM SWPF Deputy Federal Project Director Shayne Farrell.
AIKEN, S.C. – Officials with the EM program at Savannah River Site (SRS) recently announced a key milestone in preparation for the startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF): workers installed more than 1,200 feet of new transfer lines that will eventually connect existing liquid waste facilities to SWPF.
“This is a significant step toward ensuring the final integration of SWPF into the liquid waste system at SRS that ultimately results in effective processing and disposition of salt waste leading to final tank closure,” EM SWPF Federal Project Director Pam Marks said.
SWPF will be the key liquid waste facility for processing approximately 90 percent of the estimated 37 million gallons of tank waste at SRS. SWPF will separate the salt waste into a low-volume, high radioactivity fraction for vitrification in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) and high-volume, decontaminated salt solution for disposal as low-level waste at the Saltstone Facility.
Installing the lines was significant, but completing the work safely also was important, according to Frank Sheppard, vice president and deputy project manager of Parsons, the SWPF construction contractor for EM.
“Construction of the transfer lines began in 2013 and was finished recently, ahead of schedule, executing approximately 12,000 work hours with no recordable injuries,” Sheppard said. “The lines are currently scheduled to be ready to transfer waste following final tie-ins and testing of the SWPF, currently targeted for 2018.”
EM, Parsons, and Savannah River Remediation (SRR), the site’s liquid waste contractor, have been working together closely to integrate SWPF with the liquid waste system, according to SRR SWPF Integration Program Manager Keith Harp.
“The two contractors have been working hand in hand with DOE to ensure the success of this project,” Harp said. “These transfer lines will be vital to SWPF production. The work accomplished so far will integrate SWPF with current liquid waste facilities, such as the DWPF and the tanks farms.”
EM is pleased with the spirit of integration.
“A key objective for us over the next five years is to fully integrate SWPF into the liquid waste system,” EM Waste Disposition Project Acting Assistant Manager Jim Folk said. “Completion of this task is another example of the close partnering relationship that will be required between DOE and its contractors in achieving this very important goal.”
SWPF will use technology currently being used in SRR’s Interim Salt Disposition Project Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU). Lessons learned from MCU operations are shared during bi-monthly meetings of the SRS SWPF Integration Team, which includes representatives from SRR and Parsons.