Officials With EM, Other Department Missions Discuss DOE Infrastructure Improvements; EM Marks Progress in Demolition Projects at Hanford, SPRU; And Much More!
DOE Office of Environmental Management sent this bulletin at 04/13/2017 11:51 AM EDT
Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina addresses the audience as the four panelists listen during the event for the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Officials with EM and other DOE missions highlighted their partnerships to clean up sites and manage and dispose of wastes at an event for the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus on April 5.
Speaking to an audience of more than 100 people, Acting EM Assistant Secretary Sue Cange noted the interconnections between the cleanup program and other DOE organizations. She said her priority is to improve collaborations and strengthen those partnerships.
“First and foremost, it is extremely important to recognize the important and enduring missions the Department has in the areas of national security, science and nuclear energy,” she said. “It is also very important to recognize the role the Office of Environmental Management plays in ensuring and enabling those important Departmental missions.”
James McConnell, Associate Administrator for Safety, Infrastructure and Operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration, speaks during the panel discussion as Acting EM Assistant Secretary Sue Cange listens.
The four panelists described a DOE ecosystem in which EM intersects with a variety of missions, providing valuable site cleanup, technical expertise on waste management, pathways for waste storage and disposal, and decontamination and demolition of aging excess facilities.
James McConnell, Associate Administrator for Safety, Infrastructure and Operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), said the agency has broad interactions with EM.
“Our mission, by its very nature, generates some amount of radioactive and mixed waste, and if we can’t safely stage, store, transport and ultimately dispose of that waste, then at some point we would have to stop generating it, which means at some point we would have to fundamentally stop our mission,” McConnell said.
Acting EM Assistant Secretary Sue Cange discusses EM’s collaborations with other DOE mission.
Johnny Moore, Manager of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Site Office in the Office of Science, right, talks about the Oak Ridge National Laboratory mission. At left is Rick Provencher, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Idaho Site Operations in the Office of Nuclear Energy.
“It’s critical that we have those outlets,” added Johnny Moore, Manager of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Site Office in the Office of Science. “Those are critical to our mission because if we are going to continue to learn and make discoveries in doing nuclear research we have to have the ability to have outlets for those materials.
“EM is needed to perform cleanup work of their facilities and of all the facilities that we have in our program operations,” Moore said.
Rick Provencher, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Idaho Site Operations in the Office of Nuclear Energy, talks about the partnership between EM and the Office of Nuclear Energy.
Rick Provencher, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Idaho Site Operations in the Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), said EM and NE have enjoyed a productive partnership at the site for more than a decade.
“It’s really been a team sport in Idaho for many years,” Provencher said. In 2005, EM and NE decided to split the contract for the Idaho site, allowing the NE-affiliated Idaho National Laboratory to focus on science while cleanup contractors overseen by EM focused on remediation.
Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington state speaks as panelists James McConnell, Associate Administrator for Safety, Infrastructure and Operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Acting EM Assistant Secretary Sue Cange listen.
Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico speaks to the audience of more than 100 people.
“EM, they are the experts,” Provencher said. “They have the treatment systems and the know-how to do that kind of work, and by them doing that, it allows the laboratory to focus on important research and development work that we’re responsible for.”
A challenge common to each of the programs is the management and disposition of excess facilities. A DOE report to Congress in December counted 2,349 such facilities across the Department complex. An additional 1,000 may be designated excess in the next 10 years.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee speaks at the event for the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus.
Cange previously managed EM operations at Oak Ridge, where NNSA, the Office of Science and NE each have a significant presence. She used that site’s collaborative approach to compiling one set of data on excess facilities across programs as an example of agency partnership.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, the caucus chairman, said he was encouraged by the interactions among the DOE missions.
“It is our duty to the American people to get these sites cleaned up,” he said. “My commitment is steadfast to see that we get these legacy sites cleaned up.”
Workers exposed one of the last processing tanks in Building H2 for removal.
NISKAYUNA, N.Y. – EM and contractor AECOM finished removing all process equipment and tanks from Building H2 at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) nuclear facility.
The contaminated equipment is being shipped out of state. These activities represent the end of the first phase of demolition of the Cold War research facility.
"The decontamination and demolition of SPRU is nearing its final phase,” EM SPRU Federal Project Director Steve Feinberg said. “Together with our AECOM counterparts, we’re safely eliminating a contamination risk, and furthering protection of the environment.”
Workers have begun the second phase of demolition in the building’s pipe tunnel area. The tunnel is 130 feet long, 24 feet tall and 26 feet wide. It isolated the transfer piping that moved radioactive materials among the various processing cells and tanks within Building H2 and accompanying Building G2. Workers completed demolition of above-ground portions of Building G2 in November.
SPRU, located at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, was instrumental in developing the chemical processes used to separate plutonium for use in nuclear weapons and materials research. It closed in the mid-1950s.
EM began decontaminating and demolishing buildings at the site in 2009.
EM Waste Isolation Pilot Plant federal and contractor employees gather to celebrate receipt of the first shipment of transuranic waste since the facility reopened earlier this year.
CARLSBAD, N.M. – EM's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is once again receiving shipments of transuranic (TRU) waste from around the DOE complex. A shipment from the Department’s Idaho Site arrived in the early morning on April 8, marking an important milestone for the facility.
WIPP had not received a shipment since February 2014, when a truck fire and unrelated radiological event suspended emplacement operations, resulting in the continued storage of TRU waste at DOE generator sites. WIPP resumed waste disposal operations in January, first emplacing waste that had been stored above ground at the facility since the 2014 events.
“To see shipments arriving again at WIPP is celebrated not only by the WIPP workforce and the Carlsbad community, but also by our DOE host communities that support the critical missions of the Department,” EM Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said.
“What a great day. Waste is back on the road again,” said Phil Breidenbach, president and project manager for Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP), WIPP’s management and operations contractor. “The DOE National TRU Program and Nuclear Waste Partnership’s Central Characterization Program (CCP) work as true partners in preparing and certifying the waste to ship. I’m proud of their effort in strengthening the program and in their commitment to executing it with such care.”
Creta Kirkes, an NWP CCP waste certification official, said, “The resumption of shipments to WIPP means we are once again solving a national problem, and it feels great to be back in business.” Kirkes has worked at WIPP for 28 years.
Yolanda Navarrete, an NWP human resources specialist, has worked at WIPP for 26 years. She said the day WIPP resumed shipments was as exciting as the facility’s opening in March 1999.
“I’m very proud of the reopening of WIPP and the great job done by the entire team,” Navarrete said.
Bob Beeman, NWP engineering programs supervisor, said seeing the waste arrive again is the result of employee and family sacrifice for the greater good of the nation.
“The resumption of waste receipt means teamwork and ownership is alive and well at WIPP,” said Beeman, who has worked at WIPP for more than 24 years.
For Pete Allen, an NWP engineer, the reopening represents a new beginning for the WIPP community.
“Waste receipt is the end of a long journey that employees should be proud of,” said Allen, who has worked at WIPP for more than 27 years.
WIPP currently plans to receive two shipments a week, ramping up to four shipments a week by the end of 2017. Initial shipments are expected from Idaho, Savannah River Site and Waste Control Specialists. Shipments from Oak Ridge and Los Alamos National Laboratory are expected later this year.
The space between Plutonium Reclamation Facility, left, and the main processing facility, right, is where the Americium Recovery Facility once stood. Additional demolition photos are here.
RICHLAND, Wash. – Hanford Site crews expect to finish tearing down the Plutonium Reclamation Facility, a major building of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), in June.
Meanwhile, workers are scheduled to begin knocking down the plant’s main processing facility and that facility’s ventilation building and stack in May. Demolition of the entire plant complex is expected to be complete by September 2017.
Empty space between two large buildings marks the former location of the Americium Recovery Facility (ARF), also known as the “McCluskey Room.” EMRichland Operations Office (RL) and contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company recently finished demolishing the first of four primary buildings making up the PFP to be demolished.
“Safely demolishing this building was just the final phase of a lot of hard work by many employees,” said Tom Bratvold, CH2M Vice President for the Plutonium Finishing Plant Closure Project. “That teamwork will continue as demolition progresses through the rest of the complex, ultimately reducing risk on the Hanford site.”
The ARF was used for separating radioactive americium and other operations during the plant’s Cold War plutonium production. It became known as the McCluskey Room following a 1976 chemical reaction and explosion that severely hurt Harold McCluskey, who was working inside at the time. He received a high dose of radioactive americium. McCluskey died 11 years later of unrelated causes. The facility never operated again following that 1976 incident.
“Completing demolition of this building was years in the making and is both historic and a significant risk reduction,” said Tom Teynor, RL project director for PFP demolition. “It closes the chapter on one important piece of Hanford history.”
Preparing the room for demolition required years of work. Employees decontaminated the facility and cut up and removed glove boxes and other pieces of processing equipment. Workers researched, trained and deployed protective gear and breathing equipment never before used onsite in order to finish demolition preparations. Watch this video of crews preparing to enter the facility to begin final cleanout.
Remote Processing Engineer Jeff Prince demonstrates the capabilities of the excavator.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Oak Ridge’s EM program is using a new machine designed and assembled at the site to process contaminated soil from the Tank W-1A cleanup project workers completed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Employees at the TRU Waste Processing Center operated by North Wind Solutions employ a remotely operated excavating system to remove and treat the soil from shielded containers. Using the new machine helps protect them against radiation dosage and the potential for airborne contamination while processing the contaminated soil.
“Our workforce takes pride in finding innovative solutions to accomplish challenging cleanup,” said Jay Mullis, acting manager of Oak Ridge’s EM program. “The engineering and operations personnel at the TRU Waste Processing Center stepped up and provided a path forward that allows us to process and remove this highly contaminated waste stream offsite.”
The soil mixer and conveyer for loading processed contaminated soil into waste drums for transportation and disposal offsite.
The soil to be treated once surrounded Tank W-1A. The machine will remove the soil from 19 boxes and mix it with an absorbent. A conveyor moves the processed soil from the mixer to 55-gallon drums for eventual disposal as remote-handled waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad, New Mexico. About 60 drums are expected to be shipped for disposal.
The system has automated and manual functions to achieve maximum efficiency when removing and processing soil. The automated controls ensure the excavator remains within the footprint of the container. Controllers are able to operate the machine while viewing the containers through different perspectives provided by six cameras.
The excavator, complete with mounted cameras, will remove contaminated soil from storage boxes for processing, repackaging and disposal.
Tank W-1A was commissioned in 1951 to collect and store liquid waste from radiochemical separations and high-radiation analytical facilities at ORNL. During its operation, a transfer line was suspected of leaking near the tank intake, causing significant soil and groundwater contamination in the vicinity. The tank became the largest source of groundwater contamination at ORNL. It was emptied and removed from service in 1986, and in 2012, Oak Ridge’s EM program removed the tank and surrounding soil.
The project is investigating using the system to remove, prepare and package other problematic waste streams.
Members of the Environmental Management Advisory Board (EMAB) are pictured with EM federal and contractor employees in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. EMAB held a public meeting April 4 and 5 in which participants discussed knowledge management, excess facilities and potential infrastructure opportunities. Board members gave EM management recommendations on these topics. Acting EM Assistant Secretary Sue Cange and EM Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Field Operations Stacy Charboneau attended the meeting. EMAB was established in 1992 to provide the Assistant Secretary of Environmental Management with information, advice and recommendations on issues affecting the EM program.
The Environmental Management Advisory Board deliberates during its public meeting in Oak Ridge earlier this month.
The Environmental Management Advisory Board and EM federal and contractor staff view a reactor pool while touring Building 3010, a former research reactor facility, at EM’s Oak Ridge Site. During the tour, Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management staff discussed excess facilities at the site, and showed the board members examples of ongoing and completed risk reduction work.
Technicians install one of two new robotic arms in the Treatment Facility boxlines.
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – An EM infrastructure investment has further improved safety and increased productivity at the Idaho Site’s transuranic waste treatment facility.
Crews at EM’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) recently completed the $10 million infrastructure improvement project over 13 months.
“The treatment facility is a genuinely unique structure within the complex, allowing the majority of transuranic waste treatment to be done safely and remotely,” said Jack Zimmerman, Deputy Manager for the Idaho Cleanup Project at the DOE Idaho Operations Office. “By investing in this equipment, AMWTP will be able to complete its mission in Idaho.”
A newly installed robotic arm is at work.
Workers installed a new box-opening gantry robot system, replaced two robotic arms that outlived their design lives, and rebuilt a third robotic arm. Workers operate these systems remotely to avoid exposure to hazardous material.
The robotic arms open and sort waste containers in two huge concrete and metal hot cells known as boxlines. The box-opening gantry robot system is a powerful radial saw mounted on a robotic arm that moves around the top of a box of waste and cuts off its lid.
Crews updated the conveyor system that moves waste drums within the facility, and the robotic computer control system for the gantry robots and lidding machines. They added new components to the ventilation system.
A maintenance technician works with the new box-opening gantry robot system.
Completing the work required nearly 200 entries to the boxlines. Workers wore personal protective equipment, including supplied breathing airlines. They performed all work safely, with no personnel contamination events or injuries.
“The payoff from DOE’s investment has been immediate and dramatic. We have significantly reduced the number of entries that employees have had to make in highly contaminated cells to repair the remotely-operated systems from four per week to none in the past three months, reducing worker risk and lowering our cost for personal protective equipment,” Fluor Idaho Operations Manager Hoss Brown said. “In addition, that increase in reliability has contributed to a boxline processing production increase of more than 25 percent.”
Savannah River National Laboratory Associate Scientist Bryt’Ni Hill conducts a routine check of the immersion test setup.
AIKEN, S.C. – Last summer, Bryt’Ni Hill arrived at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) for an internship after graduating from South Carolina’s Newberry College.
She hoped to gain experience and skills for her career — but the internship also gave her a head start on her career. Hers is just one success story from SRNL interns made possible by EM’s Minority Serving Institutes Partnership Program (MSIPP).
Working in the lab’s Analytical Development division, Hill and another intern worked together to improve a method to measure plutonium concentrations. By the end of the 10-week internship, their work was used in the F and H Area Lab at the Savannah River Site (SRS), and SRNL offered Hill a position as associate scientist in the Materials Science and Technology directorate.
Hill said her internship was a unique opportunity, providing valuable training, education and skills.
“I had the chance to find the strengths I bring to a team and how to apply them,” Hill said. “I’ve gained new connections with people that I would have not met or only talked to in passing if I had gotten my position without the internship.”
Success stories such as Hill’s are considered great achievements for MSIPP, according to Vivian Cato, MSIPP’s program manager.
“Bryt’Ni is a perfect example of the great opportunities created through MSIPP,” Cato said. “This program fosters a ‘win-win’ situation for both student interns and the Office of Environmental Management.”
Hill echoed Cato’s sentiment.
“MSIPP helps minority students get internship opportunities in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields,” she said. “Internships are very competitive, but MSIPP bridges that gap by having research presentations throughout the year and hands-on research for students to apply their classwork.”
In her current role, Hill helps determine corrosion chemistry control limits for the radioactive liquid waste stored in large, carbon-steel tanks at SRS and EM’s Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. She prepares and runs electrochemical and immersion tests to measure the need for inhibitors in tank-waste solutions to reduce corrosion in the underground tanks.
MSIPP’s goal to increase the number of minorities in STEM fields aligns with EM’s need for STEM professionals to accomplish its cleanup missions. MSIPP gives students work experience at laboratories across the DOE complex. At SRS, MSIPP is managed by SRNL, with oversight from EM headquarters.
RICHLAND, Wash. – A Hanford Site worker controls equipment as employees repair the roof of the Reduction-Oxidation Plant, or REDOX. The plant was shut down more than 40 years ago after it was used for processing irradiated fuel rods, and recovering plutonium for weapons and uranium to make more fuel rods. The repairs keep rain and snow from entering the building and spreading contamination. Watch a video about the project here.
Employees at the Savannah River Site created a new method for sampling tanks in HB Line.
AIKEN, S.C. – Employees at the Savannah River Site developed a safe, efficient fix to a tricky problem that long impacted sampling tanks storing plutonium solutions.
The employees make plutonium oxide, a non-weapons, usable form of plutonium, at HB Line, the site’s chemical processing facility. The plutonium solution is an intermediate form of plutonium oxide powder.
Regular sampling is required to monitor the solution to ensure appropriate processing conditions. The tanks have built-in sample boxes with needles and vials to withdraw samples of the contaminated solution.
The solution sometimes clogged the needles in the vials. Operators threaded the capillary and needle with the equivalent of thin piano wire, using force to clear it. They employed rigorous safeguards to avoid contamination and contact with the sharp wire and needle.
“A team of HB Line employees, including maintenance and engineering personnel, began looking at ways to improve our sampling process and reduce hazards associated with that activity,” HB Line Deputy Facility Manager Nick Miller said. “They came up with a different approach, which has turned out to be a safer and equally effective method of clearing the capillary.”
The new method involves placing a filtered nipple with a vial attached over the end of the sample needle. Operators use a hand pump with a gauge to clear the restriction in the capillary and needle, returning them to the tank.
To avoid a pressurized radiological hazard, employees rigorously vetted the use and design of the sampler blowdown assembly. They completed engineering documentation and work instructions that include a pressure test, mockups and senior management evaluations. The team included a vent in the design to prevent the new apparatus from trapping air.
“This idea is not only a great example of team ingenuity and creativity to solve a problem, but it also equates to a safer activity for those performing this work,” Miller said.
RICHLAND, Wash. – EM’s Richland Operations Office and contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company designed and engineered a portable water-treatment system to help solve a one-of-a-kind problem at the Plutonium Finishing Plant: draining contaminated water that once filled walls to shield workers from contamination during Cold War operations. Demolition of the plant is currently underway. Here, workers from the groundwater treatment team stand in front of the equipment. This video explains how the system works.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions employees test fire detection equipment.
AIKEN, S.C. – The Savannah River Site (SRS) has dramatically improved the performance of its fire protection system over the past five years, with contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) reducing by more than 80 percent the number of issues that could cause fire protection or life safety operations to work incorrectly.
“Fire protection is one of the most important things we do to support the SRS infrastructure,” SRNS Senior Vice President for Technical Services Rick Sprague said. “When any portion of our system has any kind of impairment, that is an unacceptable condition. We are working to drive these impairments to zero.”
There are hundreds of systems on the site to control fires, from fire water supply and suppression systems to alarm and detection devices. Impairments include hydrants in need of repair.
The initiative to better address the number of outstanding issues focuses on preventative maintenance and raising awareness of the need to fix the impairments with personnel at each facility.
When the site began tracking impairments about five years ago, there were nearly 100, with a quarter of those in place for more than 180 days. After two years, the number dropped by 50 percent, with 40 to 50 being tracked at a time. Recently, there were 22 impairments, with only four outstanding for more than 180 days.
To reduce impairments, SRNS Fire Protection Engineering personnel began requiring facilities to submit to DOE corrective action plans for issues in place greater than 180 days.
“That decision has really provided a greater focus to outstanding impairments and brought everybody to the table to try and help reduce this number,” Sprague said. “With this greater focus, we’ve been able to drive our impairments even lower.”
Although the initiative has been a site-wide initiative, Sprague commended the efforts of the Fire System Testing & Maintenance organization.
“They shoulder the lion’s share of the effort for restoring impairments. And they have been able to meet that challenge while at the same time completing extensive regulatory required testing and outstanding corrective maintenance activities to prevent the number of impairments from increasing,” he said. “And they have been able to do this while maintaining schedule efficiency greater than 90 percent.”
Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Manager Robert Edwards (right), and Alan Parker (left), president and project manager for Mid-America Conversion Services, signed the partnering framework on March 28. Also shown is DUF6 Federal Project Director Reinhard Knerr.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – EM’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) and contractor Mid-America Conversion Services (MCS) recently agreed to a partnering framework for a collaborative approach to the safe and successful operation of the Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Conversion Project.
EM’s partnering policy encourages doing business based on trust, dedication to common goals and understanding and respect for each other’s expectations and values. Partnering agreements support improvements to deliver EM projects on time and within budget.
The agreement represents a commitment to continuously improve the process of converting EM’s 700,000-plus metric-ton inventory of DUF6 at its southern Ohio and western Kentucky gaseous diffusion plant sites to more stable compounds for safe reuse and disposal.
EM awarded MCS, a joint venture led by Atkins with Westinghouse Electric and Fluor Federal Services, a five-year contract in September 2016 to assume operation and maintenance of the conversion plants, maintenance and management of the specially designed storage cylinders and disposition of end products. MCS began operating the facilities under the approximately $320.5 million contract in February 2017.
The agreement goes a step beyond the contractual-regulatory relationship to influence day-to-day interactions, according to PPPO Manager Robert Edwards.
“This partnering framework envisions a deliberate process to ensure and maintain open communication and early conflict resolution,” Edwards said. “These objectives are key to our collective success.”
MCS President and Project Manager Alan Parker said the partnering team will meet periodically and discuss progress, issues and lessons learned.
“This crucial and complex project requires constant communication between the contractor and the Department, which owns the facilities and the mission,” Parker said. “At MCS, we’re committed to the partnering and teaming approach, which aligns with our organizational culture and complements DOE’s Integrated Safety Management System and other important standards.”
DUF6 resulted from the gaseous diffusion process that produced enriched uranium at the Portsmouth and Paducah sites for national security applications and later commercial nuclear fuel. The two plants operated from the early 1950s until they ceased production in 2001 and 2013, respectively.
The sites are currently undergoing environmental cleanup that began in the late 1980s. DUF6 conversion has been part of the cleanup program since EM’s specially designed and constructed conversion facilities began operating at the Portsmouth and Paducah sites in 2010 and 2011, respectively.