EM Sites Across DOE Complex Reduce Costs by More Than $100 million in Fiscal Year 2016; EM Releases Contractor Award Fees at Oak Ridge, Savannah River, and Office of River Protection; and Much More!

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EM Update | Vol. 8, Issue 24 | Dec. 29, 2016

EM Sites Cut Costs by More Than $100 Million in Fiscal Year 2016
EM’s Oak Ridge Cleanup Contractor Earns 94 Percent of Available Fee
Innovation Improves Plutonium Processing at Savannah River Site
Hanford Tank Operations Contractor Receives ‘Very Good’ Rating
Workers Continue Demolishing High-Hazard Facility at Hanford Site
Idaho Waste Treatment Facility Testing Continues in January
Dr. Vincent Adams Retiring After 30-Year DOE Career
DOE Conducts 100th Safety Culture Training Class
SRS Security Contractor Achieves 'Exceptional' Performance Rating
WRPS Awards Subcontract for 242-A Evaporator Reboiler
SRS Laboratory, Contractor Collaborate on Innovative Leaching Test
‘Animal’ Sightings at the Savannah River Site’s Waste Treatment Facilities
Contributors

EM Sites Cut Costs by More Than $100 Million in Fiscal Year 2016

EM's Richland Operations Office achieved cost savings by increasing disposal capacity at the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, known as the “hub” of Hanford cleanup.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – EM sites reduced operating costs by more than $100 million in fiscal year (FY) 2016, responding to a challenge from EM leadership to free more funding for cleanup.

The Savannah River Operations Office realized more than $34.1 million in cost reductions, followed by the Richland Operations Office (RL) with more than $31.6 million, Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office with over $16.8 million, Office of River Protection (ORP) with more than $12.7 million, Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) with $5.4 million and Idaho Site with over $4 million.

“Reducing our costs by more than $100 million is a tremendous accomplishment and we are going to continue to look for ways to work smarter and identify further savings in fiscal year 2017,” EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Sue Cange said.

EM sites achieved cost reductions through a variety of strategies, including contract consolidation, changes in contract vehicles, use of new technology, infrastructure and utility upgrades, new regulatory strategies and increased capacity of disposal facilities.

The Savannah River Site implemented multiple approaches to meet its savings goal, including consolidating training courses, reducing unnecessary paperwork, automating data collection, e-sourcing and negotiated savings on several acquisitions, and optimizing scheduling on several projects.

The Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility at the Hanford Site.

RL reduced its staff and corporate management with the end of the River Corridor Closure Contract, resulted in approximately $3.65 million in savings. The site attained cost savings by increasing disposal capacity at the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. RL also worked with state regulators on a new strategy for a waste site intended to protect human health and the environment without requiring removal, treatment and disposal.

A robotic arm sorts contaminated materials at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project.

The Idaho Site reduced overhead costs and staff by successfully consolidating the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project and Idaho Cleanup Project contracts, involving about 1,600 staff and management, into one contract managed by Fluor Idaho.

OREM has successfully reduced operations cost over the last five years by instituting incentives for accomplishing cleanup work ahead of schedule. The operations cost for FY16 reflects a 13-percent reduction from the costs incurred in the first full year of the contract through rightsizing of resources, consolidating business functions, competitively bidding subcontracts, streamlining work control processes and improving efficiency and productivity of operations.

ORP cut the hours required to manage tank farm access by adding wireless technology to allow remote access from the control trailers. The office optimized double-shell tank transfers by using dedicated transfer routes and lines for six different transfers rather than performing waste characterization analysis for each transfer.

An aerial view of the package boilers installed in the Paducah Site’s existing steam system.The large storage tank shown adjacent to the boilers was later demolished as part of the site’s inactive facilities removal activities.

Portsmouth Site workers prepare to hoist a two-ton truss into position to support a newly installed cable bus at the X-530 Switchyard at the former gaseous diffusion plant in southern Ohio.

The Portsmouth and Paducah sites achieved cost savings by optimizing utilities and infrastructure. Paducah changed its power distribution, shutting down six main transformers, saving $642,000 annually. Paducah replaced roofs on five buildings to reduce surveillance and maintenance costs by $500,000. The site's steam supply system also realized $500,000 in maintenance and other savings by having its large, coal-fired boilers replaced with smaller, modular gas boilers. Portsmouth upgraded its electric power distribution and sanitary water systems, and initiated a new contract for natural gas supply.

"A key part of our mission is being efficient in our execution and I am proud of our sites for identifying savings that can be reinvested in our cleanup programs,” Cange said.

EM’s Oak Ridge Cleanup Contractor Earns 94 Percent of Available Fee

UCOR workers take down the final portion of Building K-27 earlier this year, achieving Vision 2016, a DOE goal to remove all of the former uranium enrichment buildings at the East Tennessee Technology Park by the end of 2016. K-27 was the fifth and final gaseous diffusion building to be demolished at the site. Successful demolitions of the four other buildings were completed from 2006 to 2015.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – EM’s cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge site received about $3.4 million for its performance from April through September 2016, or 94 percent of the total award fee available.

The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) recently issued the six-month fee determination scorecard for URS | CH2M Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR) after completing its evaluation.

Contractor award fee evaluations determine what will be paid based on performance against stated objectives in accordance with annual award fee plans. EM releases information relating to contractor fee payments to further transparency.

According to UCOR's scorecard:

UCOR received an overall rating of “very good” for project management and “high confidence” for cost and schedule based on cost and schedule indexes.

“UCOR has continued to execute the scope under the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) contract very well,” according to the correspondence.

In August, UCOR employees finished tearing down Building K-27. The project marked one of the most significant accomplishments in the Oak Ridge EM program’s history. After a decade of demolition, the site became the world’s first to remove all of its uranium enrichment processing buildings. The contractor completed that demolition, debris removal and other activities ahead of schedule and under cost.

The contractor continues to provide outstanding support to ongoing reindustrialization efforts at ETTP. UCOR helped OREM perform work supporting the transfer of more than 200 acres to the Community Reuse Organization of Tennessee for reuse. UCOR “exceeded expectations” supporting interfaces with stakeholders in ETTP historic preservation efforts.

Cost reduction and improved operational efficiency resulted from UCOR’s negotiations for regulatory approvals, and the contractor was “exemplary” in managing environmental permits, compliance monitoring and required reports.

At Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), UCOR extended the life of a liquid waste treatment system critical to the laboratory’s ongoing missions. The contractor reduced risk at ORNL and Y-12 National Security Complex excess contaminated facilities. UCOR advanced the high-priority Mercury Treatment Facility construction project, integral to Y-12 cleanup.

UCOR’s recycling initiatives reduced disposal volumes and yielded cost savings. The contractor diverted more than 1,500 cubic yards of scrap metal from a landfill for beneficial use and received approval to recycle about 10,000 linear feet of electrical cable in Building K-731.

UCOR has worked more than 7.5 million hours without a lost-time injury. In fiscal year 2016, the company made 11,349 waste shipments to onsite landfills without a transportation accident.

While OREM noted UCOR’s significant accomplishments, the office also pointed to opportunities for improvement. The office identified several issues with UCOR’s work execution involving hoisting and rigging, implementation of transportation requirements, and well drilling activities in a solid waste storage area.

The contractor lacked proper work planning on multiple occasions, including procedure omissions for remote-handled transuranic cask pickup and inadequate inspection criteria for a design feature associated with storage wells.

View the scorecard here.

Innovation Improves Plutonium Processing at Savannah River Site

HB Line Engineer Chris Loyal performs process monitoring with a spectrophotometer.

AIKEN, S.C. – Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) teamed with EM to implement new chemical measurement instrumentation, replacing an aging process monitoring system for the Savannah River Site (SRS) surplus plutonium disposition mission.

The commercially available spectrophotometers are expected to provide substantial cost savings and reduce downtime during production at the site’s HB Line, a chemical processing facility.

The instruments replace colorimeters for determining the plutonium concentration in solutions. The colorimeters measure the shade of a solution, with a darker color generally indicating more plutonium is present. Engineers use the results to track work progress and to maintain strict safety standards that limit the plutonium concentration held in and transferred to different tanks.

Rob Lascola, a fellow scientist in SRNL’s Analytical Development Section (ADS), said the colorimeters were problematic.

“They took too long to troubleshoot, calibrate, and repair, and were not as accurate as HB Line personnel needed. The uncertainty of the measurements meant that plutonium concentrations had to be kept very low to ensure that they were within safety limits. Processing efficiency was impacted as a result.”

Lascola and Pat O’Rourke, an advisory scientist in ADS, came up with the idea to use spectrophotometers, which are employed by the pharmaceutical, food and other industries to monitor chemical manufacturing processes, ensuring product quality and safe, efficient operations.

“Spectrophotometers can see a broader range of colors, making their measurement of plutonium more accurate,” said O’Rourke.

O’Rourke added that employees can calibrate the spectrophotometers in minutes. Previously, the colorimeters had to be removed from the facility and taken to SRNL yearly for calibration.

Lascola and O’Rourke modified the spectrophotometer design to make it more accurate, reliable, and easier to maintain. They developed mathematical formulas to convert the color absorption patterns measured by the instrument into plutonium readings.

The scientists partnered with SRNL Research and Design Engineers Jean Plummer and David Immel to create the hardware and control software for the new instrument.

“We called it the Next-Generation Spectrophotometer (NGS) for a couple of reasons. One reason was that this system uses spectrophotometers in an enhanced implementation, providing better measurements and facilitating ease of instrument calibration and maintenance,” said Plummer. “It's a next generation forward-thinking implementation of spectrophotometers.”

Immel and Plummer designed the NGS to fit in a cabinet in the HB Line operations control room. Its front screen and cabinet indicators are user-friendly despite complicated computer models behind the scenes. The HB Line’s computerized system also alerts operators to NGS alarm conditions.

The device can be used in other areas of SRS and across the DOE complex.

“The NGS was designed so that new models developed by the scientists to measure concentrations of other material species, such as uranium, could be loaded into the current system without modification to the NGS hardware and software,” Immel said.

HB Line is the only chemical processing facility of its kind in the DOE complex. The facility was built in the early 1980s to support the production of plutonium-238 (Pu-238), which is a power source for the nation’s deep space exploration program, and to recover legacy materials stored in H Canyon.

The HB Line missions later shifted focus to Pu-239 and uranium-235 disposition preparation for the Defense Waste Processing Facility at SRS and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In 2014, HB Line began its mission supporting plutonium oxide production.

Hanford Tank Operations Contractor Receives ‘Very Good’ Rating

WRPS personnel often wear multiple layers of protective clothing and use respiratory protection while working. Here they prepare to remove waste from one of Hanford’s oldest single-shell radioactive waste storage tanks, C-104, and transfer the waste to a newer, safer double-shell tank.

RICHLAND, Wash. – EM’s Office of River Protection (ORP) recently rated the Hanford tank farms contractor’s fiscal year (FY) 2016 performance as “very good” in an award fee determination scorecard. Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) earned about $9.6 million, or 77 percent, of the nearly $12.5 million total fee available for the evaluation period.

ORP recognized WRPS for meeting or exceeding most award-fee performance criteria. The contractor met overall cost, schedule and technical performance requirements.

Notable achievements included processing more than 4 million gallons of wastewater at the Effluent Treatment Facility; retrieving waste from the double-shell tank AY-102 to the limits of standard sluicing technology; and preparing AY-102 with the new sluicer systems to support the next stage of retrieval.

The scorecard lists eight special-emphasis areas, and WRPS received “excellent” ratings for two of them: supporting nuclear safety and the Direct Feed Low Activity Waste and Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) commissioning.

ORP rated the contractor “very good” for conduct of operations; cost and management performance; quality assurance; environmental regulatory management; and safety program implementation. WRPS received a “good” rating for managing single- and double-shell tank systems.

WRPS is responsible for safely managing Hanford’s 56 million gallons of nuclear and chemical waste in 177 underground tanks, and preparing the systems to feed waste to WTP for vitrification.

View the scorecard here.

Workers Continue Demolishing High-Hazard Facility at Hanford Site

RICHLAND, Wash. – A fresh blanket of snow covers the in-progress demolition at the Plutonium Reclamation Facility (PRF), the first of four main buildings at the Plutonium Finishing Plant to be demolished. Crews with EM Richland Operations Office contractor CH2M Plateau Remediation Company are removing the fourth floor of the six-story PRF after tearing down its top two floors. Watch this updated time-lapse video of demolition activities from Nov. 1 through Dec. 7.

Idaho Waste Treatment Facility Testing Continues in January

The small-scale replica of the Denitration Mineralization Reformer, part of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit’s primary reaction vessel, will be used for testing scheduled in January.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – A small-scale version of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit’s (IWTU) primary reaction vessel will be used for testing at a Colorado research and testing facility beginning in January to help resolve technical challenges that surfaced during prior simulated waste treatment runs.

Engineers at Hazen Research, Inc., near Denver, will use the vessel and a chemical mixture that resembles a portion of remaining sodium-bearing liquid waste in storage for a series of experiments designed to create optimum waste treatment conditions within the replica Denitration Mineralization Reformer (DMR).

The 900,000 gallons of waste in the tank farm at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center are awaiting treatment to allow the eventual closure and grouting of the remaining underground storage tanks.

The IWTU’s DMR is a cylindrical vessel filled with billions of tiny sand-like particles. When treating simulated waste, the DMR is heated to about 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit and the particles become agitated or fluidized by gasses. Liquid waste is injected into the vessel, and as the liquid is quickly dried by heat, it coats the tiny particles like the formation of a pearl. The granular waste product is transferred to other processes within the IWTU facility before ultimately being sealed in stainless steel canisters.

During prior test runs, the injected liquid simulated waste coated the inside of the DMR causing a bark-like substance to form. That anomaly disrupted the fluidized motion of the tiny particles, which in turn caused other chemical, temperature and mechanical problems inside the vessel.

A working group of technical experts from the DOE complex, industry and academia determined that the particle size and fluidizing gas composition are crucial to maintaining an optimum reaction environment within the DMR.

Testing at Hazen seeks to determine the ideal methodology for controlling particle size and other parameters affecting the bark formation rate to prevent problems within the DMR. Subsequent Hazen tests will further refine the operating boundaries for the next round of planned IWTU demonstration runs.

Dr. Vincent Adams Retiring After 30-Year DOE Career

Dr. Vincent Adams congratulates crew members who prepared the first shipment of process gas equipment from the Portsmouth Site in early 2013.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Dr. Vincent Adams, deputy manager of EM’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO), retires at the end of this month after 30 years at DOE.

“It was a highly rewarding career,” Adams said. “I am grateful to DOE for the opportunity to serve this great nation.”

PPPO Manager Robert Edwards said Adams managed the Portsmouth Site during a critical period in the site’s history.

“In his final years of DOE federal service, Vince oversaw the deactivation of the first of three large process buildings at Portsmouth and ultimately the initial construction of the On-Site Waste Disposal Facility,” Edwards said.

Adams credits the community and regulators’ acceptance of the project to building good relationships and trust.

“Dr. Vince Adams was an outstanding public servant for DOE and for this community,” said retired Pike County auditor Ted Wheeler. “His work will contribute positive things for this community for the next 50 years.”

Wheeler, who said he appreciated Adams’ “can-do attitude,” previously wrote that the deputy manager had “integrated the community’s future development visions with DOE’s long-range mission” and “established himself as a dependable partner with the community.”

Adams’ unconventional path to DOE began in Guyana, where he attended high school, a privilege for only about the top 1 percent selected at an early age. He was mindful that his mother never got to go to school.

“She could have been bitter, but she was one of the kindest people on the planet,” Adams recalled. “Her situation lit a fire inside me.”

Adams captained his high school cricket team, made the national under-19 team, was captain of two first division men’s teams, and made the national team as a teenager representing Guyana in elite Caribbean regional cricket tournaments.

By the early 1970s, he was preparing to sign a contract with England’s big leagues when he was injured in a serious automobile accident, putting his dream suddenly out of reach.

Dr. Vincent Adams retires from the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office this month.

Adams then focused on education, graduating in the first civil engineering class from the University of Guyana.

He later moved to the U.S., where he earned two Master of Science degrees, one in hydrogeology and the other in petroleum and geological engineering. He later obtained a doctorate in environmental engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

In 1986, Adams joined DOE’s former Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management as a hydrogeologist in west Texas. Two years later he joined the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program at Oak Ridge, Tenn. as an environmental engineer.

Following the shutdown of Oak Ridge’s K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Adams helped establish the EM program at the East Tennessee Technology Park. He managed the Toxic Substance Control Act Incinerator, including leading a successful 18-month restart after his 1990 arrival following a major accident there.

Later, Adams served as director of the K-25 deactivation and decommissioning (D&D), oversaw the DOE National Metals Recycle Center and managed the Melton Valley environmental restoration project.

Adams moved to EM headquarters in 2007, where he served as director for the Groundwater and Soils Office. He helped stand-up the $6-billion EM Recovery Act program and directed the $1.7-billion Recovery Act project at the Savannah River Site.

In 2010, Adams returned to the Portsmouth Site, which he had previously managed temporarily, to serve as its director and to kick off the D&D project there. In August 2016, he was promoted to deputy manager of PPPO, which oversees both the Portsmouth and Paducah, Ky. gaseous diffusion plant sites.

In 2012, Dr. Vincent Adams received the Ohio School Boards Association’s President’s Award.

In retirement, Adams will continue the quest to make the U.S. the next frontier for the world’s second-most popular sport as a member of the International Cricket Council Advisory Group. He will also continue his mentoring and advocating for disadvantaged youths in the U.S. and Guyana. Adams received the 2012 President’s Award from the Ohio School Boards Association for his commitment to education and contributions to science, technology, engineering and math education.

“People helped me,” said Adams, who recently delivered the commencement address at the University of Guyana. “Now it’s my turn to help people who are in the same situation I was. I tell them my life story. If I can make it, you can make it.”

DOE Conducts 100th Safety Culture Training Class

Instructors and participants in EM’s 100th safety culture training class, left to right: Jose Christian, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); Lynn Maestas, NNSA; Rock Aker (kneeling), Office of Science (instructor); Jessica Arcidiacono, NNSA; Shahram Ghasemian, Office of Hearing and Appeals; Kristen Ellis, EM; Jennifer Kline, NNSA; Robin Warren, NNSA; Bart Barnhart, EM; Patrick Rhoades, NNSA; Gregory Hatchett, NNSA; Jessica Kunkle, NNSA; Benjamin Wang, NNSA; Julie Goeckner, EM (instructor); Dan Schwendenman, NNSA; Jeff Underwood, NNSA; and Gregory Sosson, EM (instructor). Not pictured: Kevin Dressman, Office of Enterprise Assessments; and Patrick Rhoads, NNSA.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In ongoing efforts to further strengthen safety culture across the DOE cleanup program, DOE earlier this month held its 100th safety culture training class for senior leadership.

Nearly 2,500 federal and contractor senior leaders from across the DOE complex have completed the course since DOE piloted it in 2012. Its curriculum focuses on the importance of maintaining a collaborative workplace, and offers resources to assist senior leaders in fostering a work environment that promotes trust — where employees feel free to raise concerns without fear of retaliation.

“Marking the 100th safety culture training class for thousands of federal and contractor senior leaders is truly an achievement,” said James Hutton, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Safety, Security and Quality Assurance. “We must continue to further strengthen our safety culture. To sustain long-term improvement in safety culture is hard work, every single day. It is work that will never be done. It takes concerted, deliberate, and continued efforts by each individual within the EM organization. It is up to each one of us to positively influence the culture to support an open and collaborative work environment.”

The course aligns with the Department's Integrated Management System, an overarching framework to safely plan, execute, and monitor DOE mission activities. The course emphasizes the importance of demonstrating consistent behaviors across the Department — in federal and contractor organizations — and promotes a shift from "mere compliance" toward a "standard of excellence."

Throughout the day-long course, leaders participate in individual, team, and group exercises, and use a case study to apply safety culture practices, principles, tools, and resources based on decades of safety culture research and industry experience.

The course supports DOE’s expectations to maintain a positive safety culture and a Safety Conscious Work Environment (SCWE). The course aligns with the Secretary of Energy's Workplace Improvement Initiative.

Additionally, safety culture improvements are in progress through the "One EM" concept — one EM team working toward one EM mission and voice — as EM leadership continue implementing recommendations provided by the Organizational Culture Integrated Project Team, including offering all EM employees a safety culture workshop in spring 2017. It provides an overview of employee rights and responsibilities, and resources to promote a positive safety culture, SCWE and effective organizational climate.

SRS Security Contractor Achieves 'Exceptional' Performance Rating

Centerra-SRS Security Police Officer performs an X-Ray inspection of items prior to admittance into a security area.

AIKEN, S.C. – Savannah River Site (SRS) security contractor Centerra - SRS recently earned an “exceptional” rating for the second half of fiscal year 2016, meriting a $2.8 million award fee of the approximately $3 million available for the evaluation period.

“Centerra - SRS achievements during this rating period demonstrate solid practices in the protection of SRS national security interests and resources,” DOE Savannah River Operations Office Manager Jack Craig said.

The contractor executed the site’s security mission at a high level of effectiveness and competency, according to the award fee scorecard. DOE-Savannah River (SR) noted several areas where Centerra - SRS met or exceeded performance goals and objectives:

Centerra - SRS completed work scope $1.6 million under budget;
Protective Force protected assets at the site’s K and H areas in an exceptional manner;
Security Police Officers assigned to critical facilities demonstrated effective and efficient protection strategies;
Aviation Operations was credited with safely and effectively conducting flight operations to support SRS missions and numerous collateral missions; and
Employees were commended for achieving a high level of personal safety, working over 2.1 million hours without a lost-time injury.

Centerra - SRS demonstrated professionalism and decisiveness in response to two security incidents and a medical emergency. The company’s officers were credited with saving an individual’s life after responding to the medical emergency.

DOE-SR noted performance deficiencies involving avoidable and preventable safety violations, recordable injuries and vehicle accidents. Centerra – SRS responded to these deficiencies by developing a safety culture briefing to reinforce safety as a fundamental value and personal responsibility.

Performance of the contract is evaluated according to protective force operations and training, management and support functions, environment, safety, health, quality assurance and cost control.

Centerra - SRS provides, operates and maintains an armed and uniformed protective force for DOE security interests and other duties at SRS.

View the scorecard here.

WRPS Awards Subcontract for 242-A Evaporator Reboiler

The reboiler is key to the 242-A Evaporator, which creates needed space in Hanford’s tanks by concentrating liquid tank waste.

RICHLAND, Wash. – EM Office of River Protection contractor Washington River Protection Solutions awarded a subcontract procuring a spare reboiler for the 242-A Evaporator in accordance with a milestone set in the April 12, 2016 federal court-issued Second Amended Consent Decree between DOE and the Washington State Department of Ecology.

The purchase was completed on Nov. 15, 2016 through a subcontract with ABW Technologies of Arlington, Wash. to design, fabricate, test, assemble and deliver the reboiler to the Hanford Site. The consent decree requires DOE to purchase the spare reboiler by Dec. 31, 2016 and have it available for use by Dec. 31, 2018.

The evaporator is important to EM’s mission of safely and efficiently managing 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical wastes stored in 177 underground tanks. The facility creates needed storage space by periodically concentrating liquid tank waste. The reboiler is a key component of that process. As waste slurry passes through the reboiler’s 364 internal tubes, it is heated by steam and then flows into the main evaporator vessel, where water in the heated slurry is boiled off under a partial vacuum.

SRS Laboratory, Contractor Collaborate on Innovative Leaching Test

Companies at the Savannah River Site are working together to test the leaching methods of radionuclides in low-level radioactive saltstone. Shown in the picture are three samples being tested.

AIKEN, S.C. – A Savannah River Site (SRS) laboratory and contractor are developing an innovative process to better understand how radionuclides leach out of the low-level radioactive waste form called saltstone over long periods of time.

The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL), an independent research unit of the University of Georgia, and Savannah River Remediation (SRR), the SRS liquid waste contractor, are creating a new test, called Dynamic Leaching Method (DLM.) It simulates groundwater passing through intact saltstone over extended periods. Other leaching tests conducted on crushed material may overestimate the leaching of contaminants from cementitious waste forms.

The DLM test uses pressure to force the water to move through the intact monolith material more quickly than would happen naturally. This tactic accelerates the time scale for testing to investigate changes in pore water chemistry and contaminant releases that would occur over long time periods in the actual disposal system.

SREL Associate Director for Research Dr. John Seaman said the DLM is a novel way to test the effectiveness of the saltstone in the long run.

“The Dynamic Leaching Method efficiently tests the long-term effectiveness of the saltstone in immobilizing radioactive contaminants for time periods that are difficult to evaluate using existing methods,” he said.

The initial use of this method focuses on two radionuclides, iodine-129 (I-129) and technetium-99 (Tc-99), and how quickly they leach from an actual core sample of saltstone from Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 2A at SRS. SDU 2A is a permanent disposal unit that contains decontaminated salt solution mixed with cement materials to form saltstone. I-129 and Tc-99 are key radionuclides to analyze because both are extremely mobile in the environment and have long half-lives.

The test results will be used as inputs into the modeling of the movement of radionuclides thousands of years into the future in the performance assessment supporting the Saltstone Disposal Facility. The DLM testing also supports the performance assessment maintenance program, a federally required process to reduce uncertainty in modeling activities.

Three sample types are used in the testing process: cold samples (non-radiological simulated saltstone samples), simulated radiological samples (saltstone created in the laboratory, but with Tc-99 or I-129 added), and actual radiological saltstone samples from SDU 2A.

SRR Waste Disposal Authority Manager Steve Thomas said SRR and SREL are observing the initial results of the new technique to determine what tweaks are required before fully executing the tests in fiscal year 2017.

“This new method of leach testing has a lot of promise,” Thomas said. “The interface with SREL has been awesome. Dr. John Seaman is really good to work with, very creative and accommodating.”

‘Animal’ Sightings at the Savannah River Site’s Waste Treatment Facilities

Lee Hart, left, and Russell Youmans show off the not-so-furry “rabbits” used in Defense Waste Processing Facility canister smear tests.

AIKEN, S.C. – Rabbits, pigs and snakes are found in the waste treatment facilities at the Savannah River Site (SRS) — but not the kind requiring calls to animal control.

The Defense Waste Processing Facility's (DWPF) “rabbits” aren’t the typical fuzzy variety; instead, they are hard, white plastic and metal cylinders produced onsite by SRR machinists. They are used for testing for radioactive contamination on the outside of filled decontaminated canisters.

These nicknamed tools help employees in the DWPF and Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) access areas humans cannot enter. These facilities are part of the complex operated by the SRS liquid waste contractor, Savannah River Remediation (SRR).

After a canister is filled with vitrified, or solidified, waste, it is plugged and decontaminated. Before the canister can be welded closed, it must pass the rabbits’ smear test. Up to five rabbits are shot through a tubular maze into the facility’s canyon for each test. Once inside, the rabbits are controlled remotely by a manipulator, which allows the rabbit’s human counterparts to have complete control of the smear test from behind a four-foot concrete wall.

“Pigs” help clean up messes in SPF. They are rubber balls used to clean low-level grout lines after waste processing. The balls are pneumatically launched into the grout transfer line by compressed air and scrape the sides of the pipeline, pushing debris and grout out to avoid buildup.

Rounding out the menagerie, “snakes” are used in the DWPF laboratory. These motorized augurs use long cables with grinding teeth attached to the ends. Once the snake is manually fed into a blocked pipe, the teeth rotate to grind away the blockage.

These animals are more than just helpful; they’re essential components of SRR’s mission to safely and successfully disposition liquid waste.

Contributors

Julie A. Goeckner, EM Headquarters

Sonya Goines, Savannah River Site

Stuart Grimes, Savannah River Site

Colleen Hart, Savannah River Site

Destry Henderson, Hanford Site

Brad Mitzelfelt, Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office

Lindsey MonBarren, Savannah River Site

Michael Nartker, EM Headquarters

Martin Schneider, Savannah River Site

David Sheeley, EM Headquarters

Erik Simpson, Idaho Site

Stephan Tetreault, EM Headquarters

Washington River Protection Solutions, Hanford Site

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