EM Update | Vol. 14, Issue 7 | Feb. 22, 2022

• Secretary Granholm, Senior Advisor White Visit Savannah River Site
• Test Run Underway at Idaho Site Liquid Waste Treatment Facility
• Crews Lower Giant Work Platform Into WIPP to Complete Utility Shaft
• Harold Conner: From Oak Ridge Intern to Site Manager and Beyond
• DUF6 Facility Returns to Conversion Operations at Paducah Site
• EM Broadens MSIPP for Postdoctoral Researchers
• Deactivation Paves Way for Major Skyline Changes in Oak Ridge
• Seventh Hanford Reactor Building “Cocoon” Foundation Taking Shape
• West Valley Transforms Storage Facility for Cleanup Operations
• Hanford Tank Waste Treatment Takes Sitewide Teamwork
• EM Releases Fee Awards for Three Contractors at PPPO, Los Alamos

Secretary Granholm, Senior Advisor White Visit Savannah River Site

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, fifth from right, and EM Senior Advisor William “Ike” White, second from right, toured the Savannah River Site on Feb. 17 and 18. Also pictured are, from left, Thomas Johnson, DOE-Savannah River deputy manager; Tony Polk, director, Savannah River Laboratory Office; Mike Budney, DOE-Savannah River manager; Sue Clark, deputy director, Science and Technology, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL); Dr. Vahid Majidi, director, SRNL; and Sharon Marra, deputy director, SRNL.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm speaks with Harris Eldridge with Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), at left, while on a tour of the shielded cells facility at SRNL.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm toured the shielded cells facility during a visit to the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL). The laboratory’s shielded cell work enables safe handling of radioactive materials and supports the cleanup of legacy waste at the Savannah River Site and other DOE facilities. Also pictured is Jeff Mixon with SRNL.

Mark Doyle, facility representative, gives Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm a firsthand look inside the melt cell of the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility. Here, high-activity radioactive waste is heated at high temperatures, melted and poured into stainless-steel canisters. The vitrified waste hardens in the canister, a form safe for long-term disposal.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pushes the button to weld a cannister in the Defense Waste Processing Facility as Matt Still, senior production operator, gives instruction.

Test Run Underway at Idaho Site Liquid Waste Treatment Facility

EM crews are conducting a final test run of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the DOE Idaho National Laboratory Site.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – Crews at the DOE Idaho National Laboratory Site are operating the final test run of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), running waste simulant through the facility to ensure the plant’s performance and personnel proficiency for upcoming radiological operations. Processing 100 waste containers through the IWTU is an EM priority for 2022.

For the remainder of the 50-day confirmatory run, crews with EM contractor Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC) will assess the performance of new ceramic filters and other modifications while operating the facility under simulated radiological conditions. During the run, independent contractor and federal assessment teams will evaluate the performance of the operating crews and facility to prepare for radioactive waste processing.

The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit liquid nitrogen storage system at the DOE Idaho National Laboratory Site.

Prior to a temporary shutdown in January due to nitrogen shipping delays, the IWTU had operated for eight continuous days and converted about 19,000 gallons of simulant into a granular solid. Since then, IEC crews strengthened its agreement with its subcontractor to provide steady shipments of nitrogen that allowed crews to restart the plant and resume simulant treatment. Nitrogen is required during IWTU operations, and the facility must receive steady shipments as often as daily during the confirmatory run.

The plant was constructed to treat approximately 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid waste from a nearby tank farm. The liquid waste was created during cleanout and decontamination activities following past spent nuclear fuel reprocessing operations.

IWTU uses steam-reforming technology to convert the liquid waste to a granular solid which is transferred to stainless-steel canisters and then stored in concrete vaults. Following the completion of waste treatment, the tank farm will be closed.

-Contributor: Erik Simpson

Crews Lower Giant Work Platform Into WIPP to Complete Utility Shaft

CARLSBAD, N.M. – There’s something big going down at EM’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).

A 101,000-pound work platform known as a Galloway has been lowered into WIPP’s utility shaft being constructed. It was placed there to begin the next phase of construction on what will eventually be a 2,275-foot-deep airway into the WIPP underground, EM’s repository for legacy transuranic (TRU) waste. At 26 feet in diameter, it will be WIPP’s fifth and largest utility shaft.

“It’s really great to see work resuming on the utility shaft,” said Janelle Armijo, the Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) federal project director for the utility shaft and Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) projects. “This is another step forward in ensuring we have the infrastructure in place to support WIPP disposal operations for years to come.”

Workers excavated the shaft down to 116 feet, setting up the next step. The four-story cylindrical work platform named for a Scottish mining engineer will be key to blasting and excavation operations in the months ahead. When mining has reached the 2,150-foot level, a mining machine will begin carving out passageways, or drifts, eastward, toward the existing WIPP facility.

The four-story Galloway work platform is lowered into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) utility shaft by a 550-ton crane. Excavation arms will dump rock into buckets that will be brought to the surface through a pair of holes in the platform, which allows workers to perform other tasks concurrently. When complete, the utility shaft, with a finished diameter of 26 feet, will be the fifth and largest utility shaft at WIPP.

Crews will construct a metal frame, known as a headframe, over the shaft. Cables from winches will run over pulleys, known as bull wheels, atop the headframe and connect to the top of the work platform. Lift buckets connected to other winches will come up through the middle of the work platform, filled with rubble blasted loose at the bottom of the shaft.

When the shaft is completed, two large fans will push air down the shaft into the underground as part of an improvement to WIPP’s ventilation system. WIPP’s 11th and 12th panels are planned for the west side of the underground, in the direction of the utility shaft under construction. Panels are disposal areas where TRU waste is emplaced. Five passageways will connect the existing mine to the utility shaft area.

On the other side of the WIPP site, the SSCVS is being constructed.

The SSCVS is key to restoring full operations at WIPP and is the largest construction project at the site in almost 30 years. The system will provide a modern air supply system designed to run continuously in unfiltered or high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration mode. When finished, the SSCVS will be the largest containment fan system among DOE facilities.

It will use six 1,000-horsepower fans to pull air through the underground mine. Airflow will increase 217%, from 170,000 cubic feet per minute to 540,000 cubic feet per minute, allowing for more worker comfort and the use of more equipment in the underground. WIPP workers will be able to conduct waste emplacement, mining and bolting simultaneously.

At left, workers pour a concrete access ramp at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) 25,000-square-foot Salt Reduction Building while cranes lift concrete for wall construction on the 55,000-square-foot New Filter Building, right. Together, the two buildings make up the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System that, when finished, will increase airflow in the WIPP underground from 170,000 cubic feet per minute to 540,000 cubic feet per minute.

The Industrial Company, a subcontractor to Nuclear Waste Partnership, WIPP’s management and operations contractor, has completed the enclosure of the 25,000-square-foot Salt Reduction Building (SRB). It will act as a prefilter, using de-dusters and water misters to drop salt out of the air pulled from the underground before it heads to the 50,000-square-foot New Filter Building (NFB).

In the NFB, air will flow through switchable HEPA filter banks before exhausting out a 125-foot-high exhaust stack. The NFB’s slab-on-grade foundation was completed weeks early, allowing visible progress on the building. Concrete placements continue on the building’s walls. Completion of construction of the NFB is an EM 2022 priority.

“Our subcontractor is making great progress on the new permanent ventilation system,” said Reinhard Knerr, CBFO manager. “Anyone driving by the WIPP site can see how the skyline is changing in a positive way that will support future WIPP operations.”

-Contributor: Roy Neese

Harold Conner: From Oak Ridge Intern to Site Manager and Beyond

Harold Conner is pictured at the K-25 Building footprint at Oak Ridge. He began working at the K-25 Site as a chemical engineering co-op student in the 1960s.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Harold Conner has been a force behind many accomplishments at DOE for more than 50 years. In a career that has come full circle, he has a unique distinction of supporting uranium enrichment operations and then leading efforts related to its cleanup at Oak Ridge.

Conner, who holds a doctorate in industrial and systems engineering, began as a chemical engineering co-op student at the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, or K-25 Site, in the late 1960s.

Watch this video, "Journey to World’s First: The K-25 Story," featuring Conner.

After graduating from the University of Tennessee–Martin, where he was the first African American to earn a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, Conner spent the next 33 years working in almost every facility in the Oak Ridge plant, eventually being named site manager and later vice president of environmental management and enrichment facilities. In that latter role, Conner managed 3,000 workers for operations in Oak Ridge, Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Conner’s talent, knowledge and expertise led to a diverse career across the DOE complex. In addition to Oak Ridge, Conner has worked at the gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah and Portsmouth as well as the Idaho National Laboratory, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

After working at other DOE sites, Conner returned home to Tennessee where he served as a senior advisor to Oak Ridge cleanup contractor UCOR and supported efforts to complete cleanup at the site where his career began.

DUF6 Facility Returns to Conversion Operations at Paducah Site

PADUCAH, Ky. – One of EM’s two plants that convert depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) to more stable compounds recently returned to conversion operations following a 20-month safety pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re very proud of the Paducah team. Safely restarting a nuclear facility after an extended shutdown takes hard work and a safe, conservative approach to make sure the job is done right the first time,” said Jim Barker, Paducah plant manager for Mid-America Conversion Services (MCS), EM’s DUF6 operations and maintenance contractor.

Michael Gibson, standing, and Barry Oliver with Mid-America Conversion Services check electrical equipment before performing work at the Paducah Site depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion facility.

Mid-America Conversion Services (MCS) Paducah Plant Manager Jim Barker, front row, right, and United Steel Workers (USW) Local 550 President Gary Wilson, front row, left, hold the Kentucky Governor’s Safety and Health Award the company recently received. MCS recently surpassed 1.6 million work hours without a lost-time or recordable injury or illness. Also pictured are, back row, left to right, Ryan King, MCS security manager; Joe Johnson, MCS environmental safety and health manager; Ed Elder, MCS Paducah Site operations support manager; Chris Neely, USW unit vice president; Brad Richards, USW committeeman; and Jeff Buckhalter, MCS program manager.

During the production hiatus, workers completed key upgrades and maintenance at both of EM’s DUF6 conversion facilities near Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Commissioned in 2010 and 2011, the DUF6 facilities convert more than five decades’ worth of enrichment coproducts from the former Paducah, Portsmouth, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee gaseous-diffusion plants. The resulting materials are uranium oxide and aqueous hydrofluoric acid for safe reuse or disposal.

EM’s other DUF6 conversion facility at the Portsmouth Site is being assessed for readiness following upgrades and other improvements to prepare for its restart, scheduled for later this year.

“Safe and deliberate conduct of operations and maintenance made the Paducah restart successful, and this is also being emphasized with the upcoming restart at Portsmouth,” said Zak Lafontaine, DUF6 program manager with EM’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO). “The Paducah restart is a key step toward getting the DUF6 Conversion Project back to full production.”

-Contributors: Kearney Ackermann, James Barker, Meg Kelley, Dwain Richards

EM Broadens MSIPP for Postdoctoral Researchers

AIKEN, S.C. – EM recently announced the expansion of its Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP) for postdoctoral researchers.

The program will offer the opportunity for recent graduates with doctorate degrees to perform scientific research and technical work resulting in work being published in peer-reviewed journals, technology development, which can contribute to the EM mission, and an enhanced global scientific knowledge base. To qualify for the program, applicants must have earned a graduate or undergraduate degree from a minority serving institution.

“Expansion of the Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program Postdoctoral Research Program to serve six of the nation’s laboratories is a key step toward ensuring that the DOE and its national laboratories have a diverse and highly qualified talent pool from which to develop its current and future workforce,” said Nicole Nelson-Jean, EM’s associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations.

The program, which will be managed by Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), is designed to connect the pool of highly qualified candidates graduating from roughly 700 minority serving institutions to national laboratory positions to address the nation’s environmental, energy and national security challenges. Many of the nation’s minority serving institutions have established degree programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

“The Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program promotes the education and development of the next-generation workforce in critical science, engineering, technology and math to further enable current and future missions of the DOE national laboratories,” said Sue Clark, SRNL deputy director, science and technology. “We’re excited and honored to lead this program for the Department of Energy.”

Postdoctoral researchers participating in MSIPP will work as full-time employees at one of six participating national laboratories for a two-year term, providing invaluable professional experience. The Savannah River, Argonne, Idaho, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Pacific Northwest national laboratories are participating in the MSIPP Postdoctoral Research Program.

Click here to learn more about EM’s MSIPP for postdoctoral researchers, or email the program at MSIPP@srnl.doe.gov.

-Contributor: Scott Shaw

Deactivation Paves Way for Major Skyline Changes in Oak Ridge

A worker surveys and inspects lead bricks in the Alpha-2 facility at Oak Ridge. Crews will remove approximately 750,000 pounds of lead shielding blocks from the facility during deactivation.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Since the start of 2022, EM crews at Oak Ridge have finished deactivating the former Criticality Experiment Laboratory and the mercury contaminated Column Exchange (COLEX) equipment at the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12).

They are among 200 buildings at Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) that no longer support ongoing missions. A subset of those buildings comprise DOE’s largest inventory of high-risk excess contaminated facilities that the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and its contractor UCOR are responsible for deactivating and demolishing.

Crews are conducting deactivation activities in many other buildings this year, including three former enrichment buildings at Y-12 and a number of former reactors and radioisotope processing facilities at ORNL.

Their progress on deactivation work continues inside the facilities, away from the spotlight on demolition work and attention surrounding subsequent new skyline and landscape views.

While demolition is the most visible aspect of cleanup, the deactivation phase is a significant step in cleanup, requiring immense planning and diverse skillsets. The deactivation phase accounts for the majority of each project’s timeline, and it’s often the most challenging. Read here about recent deactivation challenges that Oak Ridge crews met with innovative solutions.

Workers pump water that accumulated in the Beta-1 facility’s basement at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

A precursor to demolition, deactivation is the process of placing an excess facility into a stable condition to minimize existing risks and protect workers, the public and the environment.

The substantial planning that goes into deactivation work includes analyzing hazards in and around a facility, determining controls needed to protect the workforce and charting how to handle and dispose debris and other waste.

Workers begin field work by performing characterization to understand potential hazards. That involves collecting and testing samples throughout a facility and its surrounding area. Next, they remove and package waste, such as asbestos, and address equipment in the building.

“Prior to beginning work on any contaminated facility, our workers go through extensive training in how to recognize and handle the hazards they will encounter, including asbestos, radiological contamination, mercury and more,” said Dan Macias, UCOR’s Oak Ridge Reservation environmental cleanup manager. “This specialized training is in addition to more generalized industrial safety training necessary for working in deteriorating nuclear facilities and for equipment and vehicle operation.”

Water is pumped from the Beta-1 facility’s basement into a tanker truck. Employees conducted sampling to determine the appropriate course of disposal for it.

Each facility presents unique deactivation challenges based on its history and operations. In Alpha-2, workers are removing approximately 750,000 pounds of lead shielding blocks. Crews there are also draining tens of thousands of gallons of oil from large pieces of electrical equipment.

At Beta-1, crews installed sump pumps to remove an estimated 3 million gallons of water that accumulated in the basement as it sat vacant, and they conducted sampling to determine the appropriate course of disposal for it.

In Alpha-4, workers will install a hoist, trolley system, and construction elevators, and they’ll repair the facility’s monorail system. Crews will install temporary power for each system once the facility is placed in the "cold and dark” status, in which all potential hazardous energy sources are disconnected.

-Contributor: Susanne Dupes

Seventh Hanford Reactor Building “Cocoon” Foundation Taking Shape

Workers with EM contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company pour concrete for a 6-foot-thick foundation to support a massive steel structure over the former K East Reactor building. The enclosure is designed to protect the building while the radioactivity in the reactor core decays over the next several decades, making it safer and easier to complete disposition of the reactor in the future. The project is one of EM’s top construction priorities for 2022.

RICHLAND, Wash. – The Richland Operations Office (RL) and cleanup contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company (CPCCo) are off to a strong start on one of EM’s key construction priorities for 2022, with workers preparing to safely enclose, or “cocoon,” the seventh of nine former reactors on the Hanford Site.

Watch this video for more on this critical construction project.

Crews have completed backfilling and compacting the area around the former K East Reactor with approximately 34,000 cubic yards of a sand and gravel mixture. This month, workers began pouring a 6-foot-thick concrete foundation to support construction of a massive steel structure over the reactor building. The foundation will be completed in multiple pours over the next month. The steel enclosure is designed to protect the reactor building while the radioactivity in the reactor core decays over the next several decades, making it safer and easier to complete disposition of the reactor in the future.

“A mild winter has allowed us to make excellent progress on this critical risk-reduction project,” said Mark French, RL Division director for Hanford’s Central Plateau Cleanup Project. “Placing the K East Reactor in interim safe storage is a key component of our mission to complete cleanup along the Columbia River.”

An artist’s rendering of the K East Reactor safe-storage enclosure. K East will be the seventh of Hanford’s nine former reactors to be placed in interim safe storage.

Workers with EM Hanford Site contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company recently completed backfilling, compacting and leveling the area around the former K East Reactor with approximately 34,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel. The site was prepared for construction of a concrete foundation to support a large steel enclosure over the reactor building.

“It’s exciting to see this project really starting to take shape,” said Travis Creach, CPCCo construction manager. “We expect to complete the foundation in March, with work on the enclosure set to begin this spring.”

The K East Reactor operated from 1955 to 1971 and will be the seventh of Hanford’s nine former reactors to be placed in interim safe storage. The K West Reactor will be the eighth. The ninth Hanford reactor, the B Reactor, is now a national historical landmark and part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

The K East Reactor cocooning project is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

-Contributor: Dieter Bohrmann

West Valley Transforms Storage Facility for Cleanup Operations

An operator at the West Valley Demonstration Project uses an excavator to remove a large concrete shield wall to create an entrance to accommodate a large fork truck for transporting empty waste containers in and out of the building.

Workers at the West Valley Demonstration Project place concrete for a new floor inside a former storage facility.

Crews renovate a former storage facility for waste disposal operations at the West Valley Demonstration Project. A new roll-up door is in the background.

A new roll-up door is installed on a former storage facility at the West Valley Demonstration Project.

Workers removed nearly 300 concrete curbs that previously supported storage operations at the facility prior to its transformation. They also took out a large concrete shield wall to make an entrance for a large fork truck that will transport intermodal waste containers in and out of the building. Crews also installed a large roll-up door, placed concrete for two ramps and a new floor, completed repairs to an overhead crane inside the building, and added three small access doors.

The 17,250-square-foot former storage facility was constructed in 1987 for remote loading, placement and shielded storage of about 20,000, 71-gallon square drums of waste generated from previous operations. The drums were later removed from the building and shipped by train to a low-level waste disposal facility.

The five-story, 35,000-square-foot Main Plant was constructed in the 1960s as a commercial reprocessing facility to recover reusable plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear reactor fuel. It operated from 1966 to 1972.

-Contributor: Joseph Pillittere

Hanford Tank Waste Treatment Takes Sitewide Teamwork

Hanford’s Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste Program requires integration across all site prime contractors to deliver on more than 25 unique operations to treat waste from large underground tanks. The Technical Integration Team helps the contractors coordinate startup, commissioning and operation of program facilities.

EM Releases Fee Awards for Three Contractors at PPPO, Los Alamos

Paducah Site workers with Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership lower motors from the C-333 Process Building’s cell floor to a truck alley below in this 2021 photograph. The motors were relocated to make room for a material segmentation area to support process-gas equipment disposition.

EM recently released contract fee determination scorecards for three contractors that support the cleanup program at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office and EM Los Alamos Field Office based on their performance during the evaluation period of fiscal 2021.

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

Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO)

PPPO awarded Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership (FRNP), its deactivation and remediation contractor for the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in west Kentucky, $7.26 million, or approximately 73.6% of the fee available for its performance for fiscal 2021, which ran from October 2020 through September 2021.

The overall quality and effectiveness of FRNP’s contract performance was “satisfactory,” including in the areas of quality, schedule, cost-control, management and regulatory compliance, and “excellent” in its implementation of business systems, according to the FRNP scorecard.

“I encourage FRNP to take advantage of opportunities for improvement identified during this evaluation while continuing to build on areas of strength,” PPPO Manager Joel Bradburne said.

The prime contractor maintained compliance with standard business systems, accounting practices and applicable regulations. Support to EM in the Federal Facility Agreement processes remained a notable area of accomplishment.

Areas identified for improvement for FRNP include safety and organizational culture; conduct of operations; project integration; consistency of programs and processes across the organization; and certain security requirements. EM’s evaluation also noted that some major scope areas fell behind schedule and were over budget during the performance period.

View the FRNP scorecard here.

Mid-America Conversion Services (MCS), the PPPO depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion contractor, was awarded approximately $4.4 million, or 85.6%, of the available fee for fiscal 2021.

“MCS successfully and safely maintained the DUF6 facilities in a shut down and cooled-down condition during this period, and it has improved management of waste at both sites,” Bradburne said. “MCS continues to cultivate a ‘one-project’ management mindset where lessons learned are distributed across the DUF6 project.”

MCS, which operates DUF6 facilities at the Portsmouth and Paducah gaseous diffusion plant sites in Ohio and Kentucky, received a “good” rating for the quality of its contract performance and regulatory compliance, according to its scorecard. PPPO rated the prime contractor “very good” in the category of schedule; “excellent” for management and use of small business; and “satisfactory” for cost control.

An overall reduction in the MCS open corrective actions and condition reports represents a “very active and effective issues management system,” according to EM’s evaluation. Performance of surveillance, maintenance and plant-modification work at the Portsmouth and Paducah facilities was very good and reflected a strong safety culture.

Quality of some deliverables and proposals required improvement, and there were indications of improvement toward the end of the evaluation period for MCS, according to EM’s evaluation.

View the MCS scorecard here.

Crews with Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) load drums with transuranic (TRU) waste for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). N3B certified and completed more than 30 legacy TRU waste shipments to WIPP — exceeding an EM 2021 priority.

EM Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA)

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B), the EM-LA legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, earned more than $8.37 million, or 85.7%, of the fee available during fiscal 2021.

“N3B delivered a solid performance based on EM-LA’s evaluation. Their progress in legacy waste operations and safety basis procedures helped to lay a strong foundation for fiscal year 2022,” said Michael Mikolanis, EM-LA manager and the fee determining official. “Another strength identified was N3B’s integration of characterization with the cleanup of the Middle DP Road Site, which resulted in a faster cleanup at less cost for a priority project. And with N3B’s renewed senior management focus on improving performance, I am confident EM-LA will make further advancements on the legacy cleanup with our contractor partner.”

N3B received a rating of “excellent” for regulatory compliance; “good” for quality assurance/safety, schedule and management; and “satisfactory” for cost control, according to its scorecard.

The contractor achieved two significant accomplishments during the period: executing offsite transuranic waste shipments with strong collaboration with the National Nuclear Security Administration and its contractor, Triad National Security, and completing all fiscal 2021 proposed Consent Order milestones with the New Mexico Environment Department.

The N3B scorecard also noted areas for improvement, including occupational safety performance, incurred unnecessary costs for avoidable project delays, and schedule performance.

View the N3B scorecard here.

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