EM Update | Vol. 13, Issue 5 | Feb. 9, 2021

• Oak Ridge Moves Closer to Clearing Away Biology Complex
• EM Crews Take Another Step Forward on Demolition of DOE Buildings at ETEC
• Spare Melters Critical to Hanford’s Tank Waste Treatment
• WIPP’s Eight-Week Maintenance Outage is Integral to EM Cleanup Mission
• Project to Double-Stack SRS Waste Canisters Reaches Milestone
• Hanford Project to Restore Wildland After Grass Fire
• DOE Honors Moab Project With Two GreenBuy Awards

Oak Ridge Moves Closer to Clearing Away Biology Complex

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – EM crews recently finished taking down Building 9210, one of the final remaining buildings located in the former Biology Complex at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.

This project, which began last fall, removed a vacant, deteriorated 65,000-square-foot building that stood three stories tall. The Biology Complex is categorized as high risk due to its structural condition, and its removal will provide land for national security missions at the site.

With Building 9210 demolished, workers will shift to Building 9207, the last structure standing in the complex that once consisted of 11 buildings. Demolition will begin next month on the six-story, 255,000-square-foot facility — the largest of all structures in the complex.

Workers clear the brick exterior of the three-story 65,000-square-foot Building 9210 at the Y-12 National Security Complex prior to demolition.

Crews began knocking down Building 9210, at left, at Oak Ridge in November last year. Demolition on the massive Building 9207, at right, will begin later this month.

Removing the buildings that made up the Biology Complex ushers in the next phase of cleanup for the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and its cleanup contractor UCOR after completing all demolition at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) last year.

Workers will address hundreds of excess, contaminated, and deteriorating facilities throughout Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) that present hazards and occupy land that can be used for future research and national security missions. Clearing away the Biology Complex represents the most significant skyline change at Oak Ridge since crews knocked down the facilities that comprised ETTP.

Taking down the Biology Complex buildings will be the first of many projects to clear away former Manhattan Project and Cold War buildings at Y-12 and ORNL.

Preparing the Biology Complex buildings for demolition was a major undertaking requiring workers in full protective suits to remove asbestos material used as insulation in pipes and wall panels.

Originally constructed for recovering uranium from process streams in the 1940s, the complex was later used for research that led to strides in understanding genetics and the effects of radiation. When operational, the facilities once housed more individuals with doctorates than anywhere in the world.

-Contributor: Ben Williams

EM Crews Take Another Step Forward on Demolition of DOE Buildings at ETEC

EM workers on Feb. 4 knocked down the 13th of 18 DOE-owned buildings at the former Energy Technology Engineering Center site. The latest building to be demolished was once part of the government-sponsored System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program that developed lightweight power devices for use in space and on Earth.

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. – EM workers took down another building at the former Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) last week, bringing the total number of structures demolished at the site to 13.

The site now enters the project’s next demolition phase with five DOE-owned buildings remaining for demolition.

Crews with North Wind, EM’s cleanup contractor at ETEC, completed the most recent demolition on Feb. 4. The building was constructed in 1962 for the government-sponsored System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power program, which developed compact, lightweight reliable atomic electric devices for use in space and sea and on land.

“I’m really proud of our team who — yet again — pushed forward safely and got the site one step closer to completing demolition,” said John Jones, the EM ETEC federal project director. “The past year has really brought out innovation and perseverance in our people, and I am thankful for their commitment.”

Following the removal of the remaining five ETEC buildings, EM intends to continue working with the State of California on final cleanup, including removal of remaining sub-grade portions of the buildings that crews demolished and cleanup of groundwater and soils.

-Contributor: Stephanie Shewmon

Spare Melters Critical to Hanford’s Tank Waste Treatment

This is a conceptual photo of the planned expansion of the Atkins Engineering Laboratory in Richland, Washington to assemble and store two complete spare melters for the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant.

RICHLAND, Wash. – The EM Office of River Protection (ORP) continues to make substantial progress in its preparations to treat millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored in large underground tanks at the Hanford Site.

ORP and tank operations contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) have chosen the Atkins Engineering Laboratory in Richland to assemble and store two 300-ton spare melters. These spare melters are critical to keeping integral components available for future operations at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant's (WTP) Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility.

“The melters are the heart of the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste system, which will deliver pretreated waste from the tank farms directly to the LAW Facility,” said ORP’s Joe Renevitz, who oversees maintenance and operations at the plant. “It’s critical to have the two replacement melters available to ensure uninterrupted processing.”

ORP is familiar with the engineering laboratory; it was used for full-scale vessel testing in 2017, the same year ORP tasked WRPS with identifying critical spare parts required to sustain plant operations once tank waste processing begins. That includes ensuring replacement melters are ready and waiting.

WRPS subcontracted the assembly, storage, and transportation of the melters to Atkins, which designed and developed two melters already installed at the plant. The melters have a design life of at least five years before new melters will need to be installed.

Atkins will assemble both spare melters almost simultaneously, which will support workforce efficiency and continuity.

“Upgrades to the facility for melter assembly are underway to prepare to receive the first of the two melter shells in fiscal year 2022,” said Allan Exley, WRPS operations planning integration manager. “At 300 tons, each of the melters weighs roughly the same as four space shuttles. Atkins will expand its facility to make room for the new systems to handle the huge melters and construct an overhead crane and melter rails.”

At the LAW Facility, tank waste will be mixed in the melters with glass-forming materials at 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. The molten material will be poured into stainless-steel containers, where it will become solid glass as it cools.

Fabrication of the metallic components for the first replacement melter is approximately 30% complete. Component fabrication for the second replacement melter will begin in the next few months. Once the components are delivered to Atkins, the melters will take about two years to assemble.

-Contributor: Hal McCune

WIPP’s Eight-Week Maintenance Outage is Integral to EM Cleanup Mission

CARLSBAD, N.M. – No matter the timeframe, continual, timely maintenance keeps the vital national mission going at EM’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).

Preventive maintenance checks are made on a schedule that can range from daily to annually at the nation’s only underground transuranic waste repository. Quarterly efforts taking about a week tackle more comprehensive items.

Once a year, a multi-week outage takes on the projects needing the greatest effort. This year’s annual maintenance outage spans Feb. 15 to April 14, eight weeks that include 97 planned work activities relying on personnel from six departments, including mine operations, waste handling, hoisting, work control, safety, and engineering. The effort includes a site-wide power outage to accommodate electrical work.

If the outage seems long, it is.

“This is most definitely one of the longest outages we have had in several years. The others have typically run four to five weeks,” said WIPP outage manager Andy Cooper.

The major scheduled work includes multiple large projects in the area of the waste hoist, including:

• Replacement of bulkheads, which control airflow in an area where waste is downloaded to the underground.
• Leveling of the waste station rails, which are railroad-like rails used for the transfer of waste pallets. Movement of the underground’s salt rock has heaved the floor so the rails are no longer level. The rails and adjacent metal plates will be removed, the floor will be leveled, and the tracks reinstalled. At the same time, the steel superstructure surrounding the bottom of the waste hoist will be raised, the floor leveled underneath, and the superstructure lowered back into place. The site’s salt hoist underwent a similar operation a year ago. The 2,300-horsepower salt hoist is the only means of hoisting mined salt from the underground.

Air is the lifeblood of the WIPP underground. Several of the site’s fans will undergo quarterly mechanical preventive maintenance and other improvements. Three of those fans, known as the 860-series fans, were installed at WIPP more than 20 years ago. Two other fans, known as the 960-series fans, have their own filtration units and were installed after a fire and radiological events in 2014.

The site’s supplemental ventilation system will also undergo preventive maintenance. That’s a large fan that provides air to the north end of the WIPP mine, as well as a southerly loop that supports mining in Panel 8. Each of WIPP’s eight panels consist of seven rooms that are 33 feet wide, 13 feet tall, and 300 feet long — about the length of a football field.

The waste handling areas will be improved, including:

• Ventilation testing and airflow balance in the contact-handled (CH) waste bay and Room 108, where workers handle TRUPACT-III casks.
• Smoke testing in the CH bay, Room 108, and the site-generated waste room to determine if the waste handling building’s ventilation system is pulling enough air.
• Exhaust fan replacement on the mezzanine level of the CH waste building. This extensive work is scheduled to take two weeks. The fan pulls air through a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter from around waste casks as they are being opened.
• CH bay annual preventive maintenance, including work on overhead cranes.
• Painting the floors in two waste handling buildings and a conveyance loading room to meet state requirements.

The WIPP site gets 13,800-volt power from an adjacent switching station. Part of the work during the power outage will be the testing and repair of a 13.8-kilovolt feeder cable between two onsite substations.

-Contributor: Roy Neese

Project to Double-Stack SRS Waste Canisters Reaches Milestone

EM and Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site, have surpassed the halfway milestone of modifying high-level waste canister storage positions to accommodate double-stacking canisters in Glass Waste Storage Building 1.

AIKEN, S.C. – EM and its liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) have reached another significant milestone in a project to double-stack canisters containing high-level radioactive waste.

Savannah River Remediation (SRR) has surpassed the halfway milestone in modifying underground canister storage positions in Glass Waste Storage Building 1, one of two interim canister storage buildings onsite.

The innovative storage solution saves more than $100 million by creating adequate safe interim storage until at least fiscal 2029, postponing the need for a third storage area. The canisters will be safely stored in the GWSBs until a federal repository for high-level waste is established.

Modifying the storage positions means they can be used for double-stacking canisters. Modifications have been completed in 1,351 of the 2,262 original storage spaces. More than 1,180 canisters have been doubled-stacked in GWSB 1 since the project began in 2016. Double-stacking canisters will increase the canister capacity in the first storage building from 2,262 to 4,524 positions.

The original canister storage positions have an elevated steel crossbar support base and a four-foot concrete shield plug that sealed the opening at the top of each canister’s storage position. To modify the position to hold two canisters — one on top of the other — the crossbar that supports the canister is removed and the shield plug is replaced by a thinner galvanized cast iron shield plug that is denser and is designed to accommodate the upper canister. The new plug provides equivalent radiation shielding and structural support. A 1.25-inch galvanized steel support plate is placed on the vault floor to support the canisters in place of the crossbar support.

The canisters hold waste transferred from the SRS waste tanks and vitrified at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). Part of the high-level waste stream received at DWPF and processed into canisters now comes from the newly operational Salt Waste Processing Facility.

Jim Folk, DOE-Savannah River Assistant Manager for Waste Disposition, said the canister double-stack project is an important piece in the overall EM cleanup mission.

“Now that the Salt Waste Processing Facility is operational, production through the liquid waste system will increase significantly,” Folk said. “Therefore, it is important now more than ever to ensure we are adequately prepared for onsite interim storage through double-stacking canisters.”

SRR President and Project Manager Phil Breidenbach said the work of safely storing waste canisters is sometimes a less visible element of the SRS liquid waste program but is still a key part of it.

“Production would have to stop if we didn’t have adequate storage space for the high-level waste canisters,” Breidenbach said. “Double-stacking allows production to continue, saves taxpayers money, and helps reduce the most significant environmental risk in the state.”

A feasibility study, including evaluations for radiological, fire protection, structural, and environment, was completed for GWSB 2 last year to confirm the building is safe for double-stacking. A demonstration of double-stacking in this second building is planned for this summer.

-Contributor: Colleen Hart

Hanford Project to Restore Wildland After Grass Fire

A helicopter drops a bucket of native grass and shrub seed on portions of the Hanford Site that burned during the Gable Mountain fire in June last year. The seed will restore critical habitat and help prevent erosion.

RICHLAND, Wash. – An aerial seeding project on Hanford’s Gable Mountain will help restore lost habitat following a wildland fire in June last year, which burned more than 5,500 acres on the mountain.

At the direction of the EM Richland Operations Office (RL), outgoing contractor Mission Support Alliance coordinated the effort to drop 75,000 pounds of native grass and shrub seed from a helicopter during the rainy winter season. The project will continue under new contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS). HMIS biologists expect the seeds to germinate by spring.

“The addition of native grasses and shrub seed demonstrates DOE’s responsible land management, with a strong commitment to protecting and conserving our nation’s natural resources,” said So Yon Bedlington, RL program manager. “Remediating environmental damage from the Gable Mountain fire is a priority and the use of harvested native seeds will offer the best chance at future restoration of this critical habitat.”

Native grass and locally sourced shrub seed are seen on the ground alongside a burned sagebrush stump, resulting from a fire near Gable Mountain on the Hanford Site. The seed will help restore the 5,500 acres of damaged habitat at Hanford.

A subcontractor readies the hanging bucket for the helicopter used to drop native grass and shrub seed on thousands of acres of the Hanford Site to revegetate an area that burned in 2020.

The once-pristine sagebrush found on the remote shrub-steppe region provided a home to black-tailed jackrabbits and sagebrush sparrows, which often used it for nesting. The land also contributes historic archeological data on the prehistoric life of Native Americans who also lived on the vast expanse and made use of its natural resources, making the Gable Mountain of high importance to northwest tribes.

Aerial seeding is a specialized method for the Hanford Site and took months of planning before three consecutive days of seed application could begin.

HMIS biologist Emily Norris said the unusual timing of the fire in early June, at the start of the fire season, resulted in an opportunity to accomplish the most appropriate recovery effort, without missing an ideal window for planting. This included locally sourcing specific seeds for the three distinct ecological areas that burned within both hillside and lowland areas.

“This restoration will provide erosion control, replace lost habitat, and prevent the overtaking by invasive species that may seek to fill the once-mature sagebrush found around Gable Mountain, which is a habitat valuable to both Hanford and the entire region,” said Norris.

Environmental scientists with HMIS expect the first evidence of germination in a matter of months. They will monitor the seeded areas for five years.

-Contributor: Robin Wojtanik

DOE Honors Moab Project With Two GreenBuy Awards

Environmental Technician James Ritchey plants globe mallow, a drought-tolerant plant, at the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project in this April 2020 photo. The Moab Project received two awards recognizing its purchases of globe mallow and other sustainable items in fiscal 2020.

Sites qualify for GreenBuy awards at Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels based on the purchase volume in the priority products list categories. The Moab Project achieved a Gold award for procuring 14 products in seven categories, exceeding the minimum criteria. Examples of some products purchased by the Moab Project include environmentally preferable electronics, pollinator-friendly WaterSense native vegetation, and post-consumer recycled office supplies.

The Moab Project also received a GreenBuy Prime award, which is reserved for sites that have earned a trio of Gold awards over the years. The project won the Gold award in fiscal 2012 and 2013 and the Silver award in fiscal 2019.

“We always look for ways to be better environmental stewards,” Moab Project Senior Environmental Scientist Liz Moran said. “It takes team collaboration year after year to buy superior products. We’re proud of this recognition, both Gold and Prime, and plan to continue to prioritize products that are better for our planet.”

To view a list of all DOE sites that won awards, visit here and click “Winners.”

-Contributor: Honora Thompson

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