Savannah River Site Welcomes Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette; Hanford WTP Contractor Receives ‘Satisfactory’ Rating for 2017 Performance; and Much More!

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EM Update | Vol. 10, Issue 13 | April 3, 2018

SRS Welcomes Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette
Hanford WTP Contractor Receives ‘Satisfactory’ Rating for 2017 Performance
EM Removes More Than 4 Miles of Piping at Oak Ridge Site
New Public Address System at Hanford Tank Farms Improves Communication
SRS Teamwork Leads to Successful Repackaging of Tritium Gold Trap Cylinders
Animated Video Explains Upcoming Sludge Removal Project at Hanford
SRS Infrastructure Upgrades Continue with Cost-Saving Fire Water Tank Approach
Paducah Site Partnership Benefits Domestic Violence Victims Center

SRS Welcomes Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette

DOE-Savannah River Facility Representative Steve Stamper (left) walks with Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette through the Salt Waste Processing Facility.

AIKEN, S.C. – Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette toured the Savannah River Site (SRS) for the first time in late March, visiting SRS facilities and engaging the workforce and community leaders.

“It was a great visit at Savannah River Site, where I learned more about your impressive work in stockpile stewardship, environmental cleanup, and putting science to work,” Brouillette told the workers and community members. “You have a strong legacy of important work to the Department and our nation, and I look forward to working with you to accomplish even more.”

Brouillette met with community leaders at an event hosted by the SRS Community Reuse Organization at the SRS Museum in downtown Aiken. He also attended an informal roundtable luncheon with SRS early career professionals. Brouillette talked about his upbringing and career experience and listened to federal and contractor employees share their educational background, experience, and aspirations as the next-generation nuclear workforce.

Savannah River Site early career professionals have lunch with Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette during his first site visit.

Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette gathers with early career professionals employed at the site.

During a tour of K Area, Brouillette viewed a demonstration on downblending, in which plutonium is mixed with inert material for safe disposition offsite. K Area provides for the handling and interim safe storage for much of DOE’s excess plutonium and other special nuclear materials.

At Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), EM’s national laboratory, Brouillette was briefed on topics such as nuclear material processing and the world’s first radiological evidence laboratory at the FBI’s Radiological Evidence Examination Facility housed within SRNL. Laboratory staff discussed how SRNL is saving billions of dollars in the EM program through advances in glass science and vitrification, the process used to turn highly radioactive liquid waste into a stable glass form for long-term disposal.

At H Canyon, representatives briefed Brouillette on the site’s nuclear materials stabilization and disposition mission. He toured the chemical separations facility ─ the only operating, production-scale, radiologically-shielded facility in the U.S. SRS has used H Canyon to downblend highly-enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used in nuclear weapons, into low enriched uranium (LEU) to make fuel for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) commercial power reactors. Since March 2003, over 330 trailers of LEU have been shipped to TVA, which is enough to provide power for all the homes in South Carolina for over 8.5 years.

K Area Facility Manager Janice Lawson explains the plutonium downblend process to Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette at the site’s plutonium mockup facility.

Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette visits Savannah River National Laboratory's shielded cells, where employees conduct research with highly radioactive materials. In addition to supporting the site's liquid waste mission and research and development for spent fuel, the cells will be used to recover rare and valuable isotopes.

Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette visits the H Canyon control room to learn more about the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) spent nuclear fuel mission. H Canyon recently began dissolving HFIR again for the first time in 30 years in support of the Office of Science missions at Oak Ridge.

During a tour focused on the SRS liquid waste mission, Brouillette visited the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), the nation’s only operating radioactive waste glassification plant. DWPF converts radioactive liquid waste stored at SRS into a solid glass form suitable for long-term storage and disposal. DWPF has produced 4,162 canisters since operations began there in 1996 — more than half of the canisters needed before the facility completes its waste vitrification mission.

Another tour stop was the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which is designed to process the site’s inventory of salt waste, approximately 34 of 36 million gallons of waste stored in 43 underground storage tanks. Construction and startup of the facility is critical to DOE’s commitment to reducing risk at SRS and is among the Department’s highest environmental cleanup priorities. The SWPF is currently undergoing system testing, and is scheduled to begin operating in fiscal year 2019. Once operational, it will significantly increase processing rates for the site’s radioactive liquid waste system and the ultimate emptying and closure of the site’s remaining waste tanks.

Brouillette’s trip ended with a stop at the Saltstone Disposal Units (SDUs). Decontaminated salt waste solution is mixed with grout and stored in SDUs for safe, permanent storage. The units are cylindrical concrete tanks based on a design used commercially for storage of water and other liquids.

Completed in April 2017, SDU 6 is 10 times larger than previously constructed vaults and will hold approximately 32.8 million gallons of grouted decontaminated low-level salt waste. DOE recently presented the 2018 Project Management Excellence Award to the SDU 6 project team, which completed construction on the mega-cell at a cost of about $118 million, more than $25 million below cost, and 18 months ahead of schedule. During his first visit to SRS earlier this year, Energy Secretary Rick Perry broke ground for SDU 7, the second of the seven massive units planned to store the remaining tank waste at significant cost savings.

-Contributor: Julie Petersen

Hanford WTP Contractor Receives ‘Satisfactory’ Rating for 2017 Performance

The assembly of two 300-ton nuclear waste melters was completed last year at the Low-Activity Waste (LAW) facility of Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. The melter assembly highlighted key progress at the LAW Facility, which is integral to DOE’s Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste approach.

RICHLAND, Wash. – EM’s Office of River Protection (ORP) has given Bechtel National (BNI), the contractor for the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), an overall “satisfactory” rating for its performance in 2017, according to a recently released award fee scorecard. While BNI achieved some key performance milestones during the performance period, the scorecard also outlines several areas for improvement.

This is the first award fee determination conducted under the revised contract completed in late 2016 for the WTP Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility, Balance of Facilities, and Analytical Laboratory (LAB) work scope.

Within the revised contract, ORP increased the number of performance milestones and realigned award fee, which decreased the total annual award fee available as compared to previous years. BNI will receive about 48 percent of the available award fee, or $3.8 million out of nearly $7.9 million available. In 2016, BNI earned 71 percent of the available fee, or approximately $7.24 million out of an available $10.2 million.

The WTP is intended to process the radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at the Hanford Site through vitrification, which involves combining the tank waste with glass-forming materials and then heating the mixture to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. The material is then poured into stainless steel containers, where it cools to a solid glass form for long-term storage.

ORP is focused on achieving the Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) approach to tank waste treatment as soon as December 2021. DFLAW will use the WTP LAW, LAB, and other ancillary support facilities. These sections of WTP are closer to completion than the two other main sections of WTP — the High-Level Waste (HLW) and Pretreatment facilities.

The scorecard notes that BNI achieved four “construction complete” milestones for the LAW Facility; met EM safety goals for the WTP construction site; and collaborated with ORP to complete the preliminary documented safety analysis to allow construction to resume on the HLW Facility.

An area of improvement, according to the scorecard, focuses on concerns about BNI's ability to achieve contract milestones related to initial operations.

Each year, EM releases information relating to contractor fee payments — earned by completing the work called for in the contracts — to further transparency in its cleanup program.

The full 2017 award fee scorecard is available here.

-Contributor: Dieter Bohrmann

EM Removes More Than 4 Miles of Piping at Oak Ridge Site

Workers foam tie lines to trap contaminants in place.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its cleanup contractor URS|CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) finished removing more than 25,000 feet of piping at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) that once transported uranium through a series of buildings during the enrichment process.

UCOR was tasked with removing more than 4.5 miles of the piping, called tie lines, which ranged in diameter from 1 to 20 inches.

Employees began characterizing the tie line piping in mid-2014 using nondestructive assay and physical sampling, and they initiated demolition in December 2015. Workers removed the outer heat shields and ducting and applied a foam fixative inside the pipes to trap potential contaminants in place. Crews disassembled, packaged, and shipped the tie lines for disposal.

“Completing the removal of these tie lines is another important step toward cleaning and eliminating risks at ETTP,” said Karen Deacon, acting federal project director for OREM. “The landscape change is noticeable, and we are approaching our ultimate vision for the site.”

Before-and-after photos show how removal of the tie lines eliminates risks and improves the site’s aesthetics.

The tie lines once sprawled across the site and connected all five former gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment buildings. The last of these massive buildings was demolished in 2016. Oak Ridge became the first site to successfully remove all of its gaseous diffusion enrichment buildings after workers demolished five facilities totaling 4.5 million square feet.

The final portion of this piping was removed in an area known as Poplar Creek at ETTP. Last summer, OREM started projects to eliminate the 11 buildings, support facilities, and associated infrastructure in this area. OREM anticipates completing that work by early 2019.

These cleanup projects are part of a larger effort by OREM and UCOR to transform ETTP into a private-sector industrial park. Major cleanup is expected to be complete in 2020, but transfers and reindustrialization are already underway. Currently, nearly 20 companies are already located at the site.

-Contributors: Wayne McKinney, Ben Williams

New Public Address System at Hanford Tank Farms Improves Communication

A view of a speaker system installed at Hanford tanks farms to improve communication. This speaker is set up near AW Farm, which contains six large underground waste storage tanks.

RICHLAND, Wash. – EM Office of River Protection tank farms contractor Washington River Protection Solution (WRPS) is making it loud and clear that worker safety is its highest priority.

WRPS is installing a public address (PA) system to help notify workers in or near Hanford tank farms and direct them to safety during operational events. The PA system will supplement current communications methods, including two-way radios and cell phones.

“DOE and WRPS recognized that during potential chemical vapor events there was a need for a notification system that would complement our existing tools,” WRPS Project Manager Bobby Nelson said. “We worked closely with operations, field personnel, and our vendor to select, modify, install, and program equipment that would best suit our needs in the tank farms.”

The team has installed pole assemblies, wireless speakers and beacons, speaker cabinets, electrical and other associated equipment, and performed functional testing in eight of 11 tank farms located in 200 East Area, which is in the center of the Hanford Site. The system is operating in four of those eight farms and is expected to be operational in the other four farms in April.

Design and construction preparation activities continue for installing the PA system in several other tank farms, with installation activities scheduled to begin this spring. Hanford has 18 tank farms.

The PA system will be controlled from a centralized shift office, which will coordinate communications with field crews through text-to-speech or voice through computers. Text also will appear on industrial hygiene video screens located in active change trailers and roadside reader boards placed in strategic locations throughout the farms or farm access points along the roads.

“The PA system will be used as an additional method for timely notification to personnel working in and around tank farms,” said Jim Lynch, ORP tank farms program manager. “This will improve operational communications and provide further defense in depth.”

-Contributor: Mark McKenna

SRS Teamwork Leads to Successful Repackaging of Tritium Gold Trap Cylinders

Rigging and heavy equipment operators guide a crane during the removal of stainless-steel cylinders containing tritium gold traps from a concrete culvert.

AIKEN, S.C. – Savannah River Site (SRS) workers safely and successfully repackaged tritium gold trap cylinders, a mixed waste, for future disposition offsite recently.

“Despite many challenges, we removed these cylinders from a concrete culvert and repackaged them into standard waste boxes without a contamination event or an injury,” Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) Solid Waste Management Facility (SWMF) Lead Operations Specialist Renee Hoeffner said. “This was thanks to the many site organizations that worked closely together to ensure that the job was done safely.”

In the past, tritium gold traps were used to remove mercury vapor from the tritium process. Between 1985 and 1992, the spent tritium gold traps were placed into stainless-steel cylinders. The radiological activity of the cylinders was significantly higher than U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) limits, meaning that the cylinders could not be shipped offsite. Instead, they were welded shut and sent to the SWMF for future disposition.

Recently, SWMF personnel determined that the radiological activity was well below the DOT limit for transporting, so they decided to remove four cylinders stored in a concrete culvert and repackage them for shipment offsite.

However, this work came with several risks. Hoeffner explained that the concrete culvert had not been opened for 8 years, so there was a concern of tritium off-gassing, contamination, and deteriorated rigging slings and hardware attached to the cylinders. There were logistical challenges because the concrete culvert would be unloaded in an enclosed Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permitted storage location. That location limited the crane boom height for lifting the cylinders up and over the lip of the concrete culvert.

Crews could not pre-stage the work area at the RCRA storage location because of conflicts between regulatory, fire protection, rigging, radiological protection, and safety requirements. The team reconciled these challenges using safety management principles taught at SRS to ensure the work was performed safely while complying with the various regulations and requirements.

Personnel from Operations, Radiological Protection, Rigging and Heavy Equipment, Solid Waste Engineering, Environmental Compliance Authority, Procedures, Safety, Work Control, Generator Certification Officials, Hazardous Material Transportation Representative, Industrial Hygiene, and Fire Protection Engineering took part in the work. They addressed many challenges by making changes at the end of work shifts or prior to the start of work. They ensured aisle spacing requirements by removing equipment; implemented fire protection controls for combustible liquid by removing equipment and transient combustibles; and ensured Radiological Protection Department controls were in place. Industrial Hygiene also tested for hazards such as noise and carbon monoxide.

“The safety management process used worked perfectly for this work, ensuring that the job was safely executed without incident,” SRNS Facility Manager Verne Mooneyhan said. “Jobs like this one are a great example of the return on investment for the time and effort spent in training and application of the process.”

Workers repacked all cylinders from the concrete culvert into standard waste boxes. Solid Waste Management is making headway creating waste profiles for this waste stream so it can be shipped offsite to a facility permitted for final disposal.

“This is a great example of seamless organization,” said Wyatt Clark, SRNS executive vice president, EM operations. “Our team did a great job of balancing hazards and changing conditions.”

SRNS is the management and operations contractor at SRS.

-Contributor: Lindsey MonBarren

Animated Video Explains Upcoming Sludge Removal Project at Hanford

This animation depicts Hanford workers who will remove 27 cubic meters of highly radioactive material from a basin near the Columbia River in May.

RICHLAND, Wash. – EM Richland Operations Office contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) is in the final stages of preparing to begin a sludge removal project at Hanford. In May, CHPRC will start removing highly radioactive sludge stored near the Columbia River to a safe location in the center of the site. Removing the sludge from near the river will reduce risk to human health and the environment, and reduce lifecycle costs of maintaining the basin where the sludge has been stored. Click here for an animated video that explains more about the project.

-Contributor: Tania Reyes Mills

SRS Infrastructure Upgrades Continue with Cost-Saving Fire Water Tank Approach

A Savannah River Site fire water tank to be replaced in effort to upgrade infrastructure and reduce maintenance costs.

AIKEN, S.C. – Savannah River Site (SRS) management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) has saved more than $2.6 million by employing a new method to construct and maintain tanks that hold water for fire suppression.

The improvements are part of a broader effort to upgrade the site's infrastructure and reduce maintenance costs, and they could serve as a model for other sites across the DOE complex.

Since SRS began operating more than 50 years ago, the site has built and maintained the tanks by welding steel plates together and applying a multi-part coating to the interior and exterior of tanks to prevent degradation.

In recent years, the coating on several tanks failed, leading to costly repairs and rework. When it came time to replace a tank last year, SRNS considered a wider variety of methods and coatings, ultimately selecting a bolted steel plate method that uses a glass fusion process to apply a coating designed to last the life of the tank, with no recoating required.

The savings is significant. The bolted steel tank cost roughly $1 million less than the planned $1.6 million replacement cost for a tank similar to the existing ones onsite. The life-cycle savings from not recoating the tank is $1.6 million.

“We are always pushing for new, innovative solutions to make the site more efficient, increase productivity, and reduce costs — in this case, we hit all three objectives,” SRNS President Stuart MacVean said. “We found an approach that is not only better in the short-term, but dramatically reduces maintenance costs over the life of the tank.”

SRNS expects that the new approach will be the prototype for replacement tanks.

“There are currently no other fire water storage tanks onsite that are in need of replacement, however the utilization of this technology provides the site a timely and cost-effective alternative for replacement as needs arise,” said Rick Sprague, SRNS senior vice president for technical services.

-Contributor: Martin Schneider

Paducah Site Partnership Benefits Domestic Violence Victims Center

Shown are two of four excess government-owned commercial dryers to benefit clients of the Merryman House Domestic Crisis Center in Paducah.

PADUCAH, Ky. – EM’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) recently transferred four commercial clothes dryers to the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization (PACRO) to support a worthy cause.

PACRO and PPPO’s Paducah Site Office work together to identify opportunities for excess DOE property to benefit the local community. PACRO identified the Merryman House Domestic Crisis Center as the ideal organization to receive the commercial dryers. The resilient dryers can withstand heavy loads, thereby reducing laundry time and energy costs.

“We are pleased to work with PACRO, and especially proud to have an opportunity to support our community,” said Jennifer Woodward, Paducah Site lead for PPPO. “The Merryman crisis center does important work providing refuge and emergency shelter for more than 700 women, men and children each year.”

Founded in 1978 by a small group of concerned women willing to open their homes to abused women and children, the Merryman House has become the only certified domestic crisis center serving the region.

"Domestic violence is a silent epidemic that results in devastating consequences for victims and their children,” said Merryman House Executive Director Mary Foley. “It takes everyone, at all levels, to find their place in the fight against violence in our communities. I am proud of the way the Department of Energy and PACRO have found a way to be a part of the solution.”

-Contributors: Lynette Bennett, Dylan Nichols

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