Assistant Secretary White, Other DOE Officials Tour U.K. Nuclear Facilities; SRS Reaches Cleanup Milestone at Building Used to Produce Space Mission Fuel; and much more!

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EM Update | Vol. 10, Issue 43 | Oct. 30, 2018

Assistant Secretary White, Other DOE Officials Tour U.K. Nuclear Facilities
SRS Reaches Cleanup Milestone at Site of Fuel Production for Space Mission
Oak Ridge Prepares Former Uranium Enrichment Area for Industrial Use
Worker-Led Efficiencies Result in Cost Savings for Hanford Groundwater Treatment
Mock-up Project Reduces Risk in Salt Waste Processing Facility Integration Work
Hanford Vit Plant Support Facility Takes Shape
Record Number of Students Learn About Portsmouth Careers at Science Alliance
SRS Contractor Achieves Record at Over 10 Million Safe Work Hours
Hanford Contractor Builds New Homes for Burrowing Owls
West Valley Site, Firefighters Provide Fire Safety Training to Students

Assistant Secretary White, Other DOE Officials Tour U.K. Nuclear Facilities

Members of the DOE delegation gather with U.K. officials following a tour of the Sellafield site in the U.K.

EM Assistant Secretary Anne White visited some of the United Kingdom's nuclear facilities last week as part of a DOE delegation. Following is her report on the trip:

Last week, I had a chance to visit some of the United Kingdom’s nuclear facilities in Barrow and Sellafield.

We landed in Manchester, and made our way to Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, to visit International Nuclear Services — an important provider of global nuclear shipping services. After learning about its shipping programs, we boarded the Pacific Egret and Capt. Richard Walby led us on a great tour of the ship. Capt. Richard explained how this impressive vessel safely maneuvers the seas, has a 25-year life span, and is capable of meeting a variety of global nuclear shipping needs.

The following day, we met with Under Secretary Paul Dabbar, Phil Hallington from Sellafield Ltd., the company tasked with cleaning up the Sellafield site, and Alan Cumming from the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). We toured the Sellafield site and discussed its mission, history, and present-day challenges. The Sellafield site is extremely compact — I compared it to taking many of our EM facilities from across the U.S. and condensing them into a single two-square-mile site! They don’t have a lot of room to maneuver over there! We toured several of the site’s main facilities, including the Magnox Storage Pond and the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo Facility. We were able to see firsthand some of the biggest waste management challenges they face, including performing sludge removal and waste retrievals from their facilities. The tour made me realize how grateful I am for our federal and commercial waste disposal routes that we have available to us in the U.S. — and to the communities that host these facilities.

On the tour, I witnessed the very beginning of the cleanout of the Magnox Storage Pond. I especially liked talking to the workers who were using manipulators to cut materials in the storage ponds. Clearly, they were all very proud to be a part of the first cleanout activities. Great job, guys! We ended the day with a roundtable discussion with representatives from NDA, Sellafield, and the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL). It was great to discuss our experiences and perspectives on cleanup and waste management, and it was especially fun to hear about everyone’s experiences at DOE and U.K. sites. Many of the people who attended the roundtable had visited or worked at a DOE site — a great way to exchange information.

EM Assistant Secretary Anne White, center, and other members of the DOE delegation toured the Pacific Egret. Capt. Richard Walby, fourth from left, discussed how the ship is capable of meeting a variety of global nuclear shipping needs.

Wednesday was filled with discussions and presentations on major topics, including approaches to contracting, low-level waste management, waste classification, technology development and deployment, and regulatory and stakeholder engagement.

At the end of the day, we transitioned to our Standing Committee meeting with NDA and NNL. DOE, NDA, and NNL work together under a Statement of Intent (SOI), which allows for the U.K. and the U.S. to engage in discussion on environmental management and waste management topics. We had a productive session, identifying several areas of continued and new engagement that could be beneficial to both programs. I really enjoyed working with Alan Cumming, and appreciated his desire to make progress and demonstrate the benefit of our SOI. He and I share a very similar view on what success looks like, and I’m looking forward to our continued partnership.

Our trip ended with a tour of the NNL located at the Sellafield site. We saw the pilot-scale GeoMelt vitrification rig as well as the new hot cells that are being commissioned for work to support analytical services for D&D at Sellafield. Kerry Burns gave us a great explanation of some technology they use at NNL to evaluate their GeoMelt tests. Kerry previously spent time at the Savannah River Site as part of a technical exchange with NNL, and I really enjoyed hearing about her time at DOE and NNL.

I want to thank all of our U.K. hosts, especially Alan Cumming, John Mathieson, Graham Jonsson, and Laurie Judd for facilitating such a wonderful trip and tour. I am excited to continue our engagement!

-Anne Marie White

SRS Reaches Cleanup Milestone at Site of Fuel Production for Space Mission

Operators who once worked inside the Plutonium Fuel Form Facility used manipulators to handle material inside cells. Crews recently reached a cleanup milestone at the facility.

AIKEN, S.C. – Recently, EM workers for the first time removed equipment contaminated with plutonium once used to power deep space missions from a building known as 235-F, marking a milestone in reducing risk at the Savannah River Site (SRS) facility.

The two-story, blast-resistant, windowless, reinforced concrete 235-F has been inactive for more than 25 years. One section of the building, known as the Plutonium Fuel Form (PuFF) Facility, was used to make fuel spheres and pellets out of plutonium (pu)-238. The pu-238 powered deep space missions, such as the Galileo space probe to Jupiter launched from the Space Shuttle Atlantis in October 1989.

“This material removal marks a huge milestone in the multi-year process to reduce the risk and clean up the PuFF Facility cells,” 235-F Project Manager Jeff Hasty said. “We started planning for removal in 2012 and have been preparing the cells since then. Work completed so far in the facility includes removing fixed combustibles, upgrading the fire detection system, de-energizing unneeded electrical circuits, draining and cleaning shield windows after their partial disassembly, and installing light sources.”

Inside the PuFF Facility are nine cells of thick concrete walls with shielded windows. Employees who worked there remained outside the cells as they handled hazardous materials with remote manipulators. Material entered the facility in Cell 1 and traveled through the other cells to be made into spheres and pellets.

"This project is extremely challenging," Hasty said. “Along with the amount of material involved, we are also working in very tight spaces with limited accessibility. Because of the way the spheres and pellets were made, the pu-238 was left in some cells as a very fine particulate dust that is easily disturbed. Every move we make will need to be slow, deliberate, and precise.”

Operators prepare for training in the 235-F mock-up. Headsets are used to ensure effective communication.

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) worked with the 235-F Risk Reduction Team to determine that an estimated 1,500 grams of pu-238 remain within the shielded cells. EM workers practiced cleanup work in a mock-up of 235-F.

SRNL is using existing technology and developing new tools to locate and remove or affix the pu-238 to ensure it will not become mobile during decontamination activities. Any pu-238 and tools containing pu-238 will be safely stored for eventual packaging and shipment to EM’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for disposal.

“Cell 1 is the most contaminated cell and we expect to be working in it for the rest of 2018 and 2019,” Hasty said. "However, in this type of situation, ensuring the safety of our workers is the highest priority, so we will work slowly and purposefully."

The material set to be removed includes wires and manipulator handles. Operators will work remotely as they pass the items through the cells for removal. The cells will then be vacuumed and otherwise cleaned to remove the leftover plutonium.

“We are committed to reducing risk at SRS, and to removing as much material from the facility as practical,” Hasty added.

-Contributor: Lindsey MonBarren

Oak Ridge Prepares Former Uranium Enrichment Area for Industrial Use

Once crews finish removing the K-29 Building foundation slab in 2019, the Oak Ridge Office of EM will be set to transfer the area for industrial redevelopment.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Last week, workers began pulling up the foundation slab of the former K-29 gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment building, opening a large area of land that the Oak Ridge Office of EM (OREM) is set to transfer to the community for industrial redevelopment.

After OREM completed the K-29 demolition in 2006, the slab was paved with asphalt, and trailers were placed there to house cleanup personnel and project teams.

As OREM and cleanup contractor UCOR near completion of cleanup at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), they are taking steps to transition the site to private ownership. That involves transitioning many employees originally stationed at ETTP to offices offsite, allowing UCOR to remove the trailers from the K-29 pad and pull up the slab.

Crews have already removed raised walkways, and now they are working to remove the retaining walls, asphalt, and concrete slab, which is expected to be complete in 2019.

“The former K-29 Building area was repurposed after the building was demolished, and now it is undergoing another transformation,” said Karen Deacon, acting ETTP portfolio federal project director. “The final product will be a grassy field available for future industrial use, which aligns with our ultimate vision for ETTP.”

Crews are removing the estimated 7-acre slab of the foundation for the K-29 Building.

The 291,000-square-foot K-29 Building was the first of the five massive gaseous diffusion buildings to be taken down at ETTP. These buildings were built in the 1940s and 1950s to enrich uranium for defense and commercial purposes until the plant shut down in the mid-1980s.

OREM continued demolition on these structures for the next decade, eliminating a 4.5-million-square-foot footprint. In 2016, the final wall of the fifth gaseous diffusion building fell — making Oak Ridge the first site in the world to remove all of its former uranium enrichment facilities.

OREM and UCOR are working to complete major cleanup at ETTP in 2020, and transfer the land back to the community for reuse as a private industrial park. That vision is already being realized, as EM has already demolished more than 400 buildings and transferred almost 1,300 acres from government ownership.

-Contributor: Ben Williams

Worker-Led Efficiencies Result in Cost Savings for Hanford Groundwater Treatment

Workers with CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company’s soil and groundwater remediation project pose for a photo just before celebrating a record year of groundwater cleanup at the Hanford Site.

RICHLAND, Wash. – Worker-driven improvements led crews to treat a record amount of groundwater at the Hanford Site in fiscal 2018 at the lowest cost per gallon in five years.

EM’s Richland Operations Office and contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) treated nearly 2.6 billion gallons, removing more than 90 tons of contaminants, at a cost of about 1.31 cents per gallon during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. That compares with the cost of $1.76 cents per gallon in 2013.

“It has been a busy and successful year for our team,” said John Rendall, vice president of CHPRC’s soil and groundwater remediation project. “Through worker innovation and efficiencies, we are expanding capacity, treating additional waste, and saving money.”

Worker-driven upgrades to tanks used to treat groundwater at the Hanford Site helped EM and contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company treat a record amount of groundwater in fiscal 2018, at the lowest cost per gallon in five years.

Notable highlights in the past year include saving more than $5 million by using a more efficient type of resin that removes the chemical chromium from groundwater in treatment facility tanks, called vessels. Another key to the cost savings is thinking ahead about how to reduce downtime for maintenance over the long term. The team upgraded equipment at three pump-and-treat facilities, including replacing current treatment vessels with more durable vessels made of stainless steel, which will require fewer maintenance outages.

“We continuously look for ways to make improvements like these to ensure our groundwater treatment network performs well at a reasonable cost,” said Mike Cline, RL project director for cleanup of soil and groundwater at Hanford. “The end goal is protecting the nearby Columbia River, which runs through the site and is a precious resource for the entire Pacific Northwest.”

-Contributor: Lynn Tegeler

Mock-up Project Reduces Risk in Salt Waste Processing Facility Integration Work

Workers practice waste transfer line modification work in a mock-up area.

AIKEN, S.C. – It is said that practice makes perfect, and EM and its liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) are putting practice into action before tackling significant projects.

In the most recent case, practice ensured reduced risk to Savannah River Remediation (SRR) workers modifying underground radioactive waste transfer lines in support of Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) integration.

SRR is responsible for integrating the SWPF into SRS liquid waste facilities. SWPF, currently in testing and commissioning, will be the key facility to process remaining salt waste inventory at SRS.

Among integration work is physical tie-ins of the transfer lines. SRR construction workers completed an exploratory excavation of the transfer line area in December 2017 to determine the configuration needed for the line work.

At that time, it was discovered that the transfer line to be modified had higher radiation rates than expected. To ensure the construction team could safely perform this work, a mock-up of the excavation was performed to resolve potential issues. The mock-up included other transfer lines that were within the excavation boundary to realistically show how the conditions would be during the actual tie-in work. The mock-up area, fabricated by SRR construction forces, was 8 feet wide, 12 feet long, and 4 feet deep.

DOE-Savannah River Assistant Manager for Waste Disposition Jim Folk said everyone wins anytime controls are implemented to reduce risk.

“The mock-ups used for the liquid waste operations and SWPF tie-in project are an ideal way to test the execution of this important but hazardous scope,” Folk said. “Ultimately, it helps to determine the tools and techniques that will be needed to perform the tie-ins while reducing exposure to the workers.”

Using mock-ups and remote tools, among other controls, will significantly reduce the risk and total radiological dose from this work, according to Keith Harp, liquid waste/SWPF integration program manager.

Completing the tie-ins for the transfer lines is expected to take place during the final SWPF tie-ins, which will be completed just prior to SWPF startup.

-Contributor: Colleen Hart

Hanford Vit Plant Support Facility Takes Shape

Hanford crews prepare to lift 40-ton process cell pipe racks into the Effluent Management Facility.

RICHLAND, Wash. – EM’s Office of River Protection (ORP) and contractor Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI) recently installed two 40-ton process cell pipe racks into the Effluent Management Facility (EMF), part of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at Hanford.

EMF is the final WTP support building required to deliver the Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) vitrification approach.

The pipe racks are steel structures that will allow utilities to be run between areas of the facility to connect equipment and systems. Each rack measures roughly 25 feet tall, 20 feet wide, and 70 feet long and required a heavy lift crane to install. After the rack modules were moved into the main process facility, workers began bulk pipe installations within the building footprint.

EMF work crews pre-fabricated and pre-assembled many of the equipment and pipe rack modules outside the facility before lifting them into place inside. This allowed installation work to continue inside the building, making more efficient use of space and enhancing safety.

Two 40-ton process cell pipe racks for the Effluent Management Facility were constructed outside of the building footprint to allow concurrent construction activities inside the facility.

A 40-ton process cell pipe rack is moved into the Effluent Management Facility using a heavy lift crane.

During vitrification operations, secondary liquids will be generated from the Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility melter off-gas system. These liquids will then go to the EMF where excess water is evaporated and transferred to the nearby Liquid Effluent Retention Facility, while the remaining concentrate is sent back into the vitrification process.

“The team continues to make tremendous progress on construction of this critical Vit Plant support facility,” said Jason Young, ORP’s federal project director for the EMF. “In addition, nearly half of the Balance of Facilities systems have completed startup testing and are well into the early commissioning phase as we get closer to starting DFLAW operations.”

The DFLAW approach is expected to enable treatment of low-activity waste to begin in advance of a court-ordered milestone date of 2023. This approach will increase available double-shell tank space and provide valuable lessons learned to aid startup and commissioning of other portions of the WTP.

-Contributor: Ian Klei

Record Number of Students Learn About Portsmouth Careers at Science Alliance

Students at the Portsmouth Site Science Alliance event meet with representatives from regional universities.

PIKE COUNTY, Ohio – The EM Portsmouth Site’s ninth annual Science Alliance event recently drew a record number of participants from southern Ohio schools.

Nearly 1,900 high-school juniors from 32 schools visited the site during the three days of interactive demonstrations on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to learn about associated careers and educational pathways.

“The Science Alliance event continues to grow because it’s not a typical science fair,” said Greg Simonton, who oversees the project for EM’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. “Students and educators get unique and valuable information, and this event allows EM to showcase the kinds of STEM-related careers we have available, which is a national priority.”

About 75 volunteers help with the annual event, which provides 10 demonstrations on a range of STEM subjects, including the science of sound, the nuclear fuel cycle, plant history, robotics, and engineering. Regional universities also meet with students to let them know how their curricula align with their STEM-related interests.

Sarah Crabtree, a 16-year-old junior at Waverly High School, said the event showed students potential careers in science that were unknown to them.

“I think Science Alliance is a good opportunity to see what’s here (at the Portsmouth Site) and is a fun way to get involved in sciences,” said Crabtree, who said she is evaluating her career and educational options. “I’ll certainly keep a lot of this in mind.”

A high-school student learns about chemistry careers during a Science Alliance interactive session.

EM contractor Fluor-BWXT’s Marc Hill delivers a demonstration of site history at the recent Science Alliance event at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site.

Garrett Humphrey, another 16-year-old, is a junior at the Scioto County Career Technical Center in Lucasville, Ohio. He said the event provided information on industrial jobs at the site.

“This is pretty fun, and it’s cool to learn about all this stuff out here I didn’t know that much about,” Humphrey said. “I liked learning that they have different types of jobs here, like for welders.”

Barb Bazler teaches biology, anatomy, and physiology at Portsmouth West High School. She said the event is not only popular with students, but provides them a historical perspective important to their understanding of the Portsmouth Site’s integral role in the Cold War.

“The kids love it because it is very hands-on. It’s very educational and it’s good for the students to see how important this area was when it came to dealing with world issues,” Bazler said. “This event allows students to see what they have learned in the classroom and see how it is applied in a real-world setting. It reinforces what they have been taught.”

The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant was constructed from 1952 to 1956. Uranium enrichment operations occurred from 1954 to 2001 for national security purposes and the commercial nuclear fuel industry. The site is now in its eighth year of a decontamination and decommissioning project to prepare portions of the site for economic development and other uses.

-Contributors: April Greene, Rick Greene, Marlo Ridout

SRS Contractor Achieves Record at Over 10 Million Safe Work Hours

AIKEN, S.C. – Employees with EM’s liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) recently achieved a company record by surpassing 10 million hours, or just over two years, without injury resulting in a missed day of work. Since the Savannah River Remediation (SRR) contract began in 2009, the previous longest safe work hours record was 6.5 million hours. SRR President and Project Manager Tom Foster said this achievement is a result of a deep-seated safety culture. “Ten million hours is an incredible level of distinction in any industry, but it’s especially important in our nuclear operations arena,” he said. Here, SRR employees conduct a pre-job brief.

-Contributor: Ashley Dernberger

Hanford Contractor Builds New Homes for Burrowing Owls

A worker prepares one of 45 new or upgraded homes for the burrowing owls.

RICHLAND, Wash. – A 64-percent reduction in active burrows — or homes — for burrowing owls, a candidate for listing as a threatened or endangered species in Washington state, occurred between 2013 and 2017 on the Hanford Site.

Thanks to EM Richland Operations Office (RL) contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA), the owls have a new home and an opportunity to increase their population. As the site’s environmental steward, MSA recently installed or upgraded 45 artificial burrows for the owls.

“As site cleanup continues, it’s important we focus on species recovery,” said RL’s Annabelle Rodriguez, who oversees MSA’s ecological monitoring program. “The decline of the burrowing owl is a concern, and we believe these new nesting habitats will help the population recover while restoring ecological integrity at Hanford.”

A team with Mission Support Alliance installs new habitats for burrowing owls, providing the birds more nesting areas that can be maintained and monitored over a long-term period.

This burrowing owl was spotted during an ecological survey on the Hanford Site in 2016. Data from the survey is used for providing protection measures and long-term trending of ecological resources during the site cleanup.

The burrowing owl is considered a Washington state species of concern. Using 55-gallon drum halves and a six-inch plastic tunnel access, workers created an efficient, spacious, and secure nesting space for the sensitive burrowing owls.

The new and improved burrows will last longer and allow Mission Support Alliance to monitor the population of burrowing owls and track their recovery.

Workers constructed the burrows using 55-gallon drum halves and six-inch plastic tunnel access, providing a larger nesting space that is easier to monitor and maintain than those previously used. Twenty-five burrows were installed in new locations, and 20 old burrows were replaced with the updated design.

“Without enough nesting habitats, the burrowing owl population would continue to decline, which would have a negative impact on the rest of the ecosystem at Hanford,” said April Johnson, who leads MSA’s ecological monitoring program. “The new and improved burrows will last longer, and allow us to monitor the burrowing owl population and track their recovery.”

-Contributor: Renee Brooks

West Valley Site, Firefighters Provide Fire Safety Training to Students

WEST VALLEY, N.Y. – EM and its cleanup contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project partnered with the local volunteer fire company to conduct fire safety training for West Valley School District middle school students. “In the event of an emergency, you always fall back to what you know,” said Kevin Murray, CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley emergency preparedness manager and volunteer firefighter. “Now these students have training that they can fall back on. They will be better prepared to deal with an emergency situation. In the end, training is all about learning, practicing, and applying.” Held as part of National Fire Prevention Week, the hands-on training allowed the students to use a fire extinguisher training simulator, as shown here. Murray, who serves as chief of the West Valley Volunteer Hose Company, is pictured with a student during the training.

-Contributor: Joseph Pillittere

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