Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management

October 14, 2014

 

Cincinnati -- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued a Final Request for Proposal (RFP), for support services at the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center (TWPC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  The total estimated value of the contract is $100 Million - $300 Million.  The period of performance will be 5-years, with a three-year base period and one, two-year option period.

 

A Draft RFP was released July 1, 2014, requesting comments from industry.  This acquisition is a 100 percent set-aside for small businesses under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code 562211, Hazardous Waste Treatment and Disposal.

 

Services under this procurement include, but are not limited to, safely and compliantly managing and operating the Oak Ridge TWPC Category II nuclear facility in support of processing EM legacy TRU waste; performing surveillance and maintenance activities; providing support to the Central Characterization Project for final certification and disposition of TRU soil and debris waste; processing of other Remote Handled/Contact Handled TRU waste originating from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and processing Nuclear Fuel Services soils.   Similar services are currently being performed with Wastren Advantage, Inc.  The current contract ends on January 16, 2015, with an option to extend the ongoing services for 6 additional months in accordance with the terms of the contract and to align with this procurement's award schedule.

 

A pre-proposal conference and site tour will be held October 28, 2014 at the Oak Ridge TWPC facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  Registration and additional information regarding the site tour will be included in the final RFP and posted to http://twpc.oro.doe.gov/

Government Accountability Office

October 10, 2014

 

What GAO Found

 

In January 2013, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) completed a review to identify the factors that contributed to the space/fit issue with the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF), and identified a number of factors within both NNSA and the contractor managing the UPF design at that time. NNSA's review identified shortcomings in 1) federal oversight of the project, 2) design integration, 3) communications, and 4) the UPF contractor's management processes and procedures. For example, NNSA determined that it did not have adequate federal staff to perform effective oversight of the project, and that the design inputs for the computer model the contractor used to allocate and track space utilization within the facility were not well integrated. NNSA also found that communications shortcomings occurred because the contractor did not always provide timely notification to the NNSA project office of emerging concerns, and that the contractor's management processes and procedures did not formally identify, evaluate, or act on technical concerns in a timely manner.

Department of Energy Office of the Inspector General

October 7, 2014

 

The Department of Energy's Inspector General released its special report on management challenges within the agency for the next fiscal year.  Those challenges include contract management, environmental cleanup, nuclear waste disposal, and stockpile stewardship.  The report does not make any specific recommendations but rather serves to highlight significant issues so the IG can work with the Department to "enhance the effectiveness of agency programs and operations."

 

 

 

 

The Oak Ridger

October 13, 2014

 

Demolition of the K-31 Building at Oak Ridge's East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) began last week, marking the removal of the fourth of five gaseous diffusion buildings at the former uranium enrichment site.

 

Demolition of the K-31 Building at Oak Ridge's East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) began last week, marking the removal of the fourth of five gaseous diffusion buildings at the former uranium enrichment site.

 

The two-story building covers 750,000 square feet and spans a 17-acre footprint, according to a Department of Energy news release. The K-31 facility began operations in 1951, and it was used to enrich uranium for defense and commercial purposes until it was shut down in 1985. In 2005, EM removed most of the hazardous materials from the building's interior.

 

"This project is possible because of the project managers and crews that completed the K-25 Demolition Project under budget and ahead of schedule," said Sue Cange, acting manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (EM). "DOE and UCOR have established a model partnership that is allowing us to maintain momentum, complete additional cleanup work, and retain skilled workers."

 

URS/CH2M Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR), EM's cleanup contractor for the Oak Ridge Reservation, is responsible for demolishing the facility. The company prepared it for demolition this past summer by conducting asbestos abatement, removing the facility's exterior transite paneling, disconnecting the building's power sources, and completing pollution prevention efforts, such as filling interior and exterior storm drains.

 

EM and UCOR worked together to accelerate K-31's demolition five months ahead of its original proposed baseline schedule. The early start was achieved through EM's oversight and the hard work and safety focus of UCOR's skilled workforce, supporting subcontractors, and labor partners.

 

"Demolishing K-31 will bring us another step closer to our Vision 2016 initiative -- removal of all gaseous diffusion facilities from ETTP by 2016," said Ken Rueter, UCOR president and project manager. "Achieving this vision will mark the first-ever complete cleanup of a gaseous diffusion plant and facilities. Removal of K-31, and afterward K-27, will eliminate a nuclear hazard and open up more ETTP property for reindustrialization and regional economic development."

 

Once the K-31 demolition is completed next year, the 383,000-square-foot K-27 Building will be the only remaining gaseous diffusion building at ETTP. It is scheduled for demolition in 2015.

 

Under DOE's reindustrialization program, property at ETTP is being transferred to the private sector as the agency works to make the site a private sector industrial park. Cleanup at the site is paving the way to achieve DOE's goal and creating a safer environment.

Yakima Herald

October 12, 2014

 

KENNEWICK, Wash. -- The landscape near Hanford's former C Reactor might look mostly flat from a distance, but get up close and there are small ridges, indentations and rock outcroppings.

 

That's just what James Bernhard likes. He's a wildlife biologist and the natural resources lead for Washington Closure Hanford.

 

"Engineers like things square and flat," he said.

 

But not Bernhard.

 

He's made sure the heavy equipment used to fill what was essentially an open pit mine near C Reactor has not left the ground too tidy.

 

Washington Closure is in the midst of a major backfill campaign, filling up the holes dug to remove contamination at the nuclear reservation as much of the environmental cleanup at Hanford along the Columbia River nears completion.

 

During the past 20 months, workers under a DelHur Industries subcontract placed 3 million tons of backfill. That's enough to fill an area the size of a football field 900 feet high, or about one and a half times the height of the Space Needle in Seattle, said Ron Morris, Washington Closure manager for backfilling in the former reactor areas.

 

Workers have dug massive holes near C, D and DR reactors to chase chromium contamination in the soil down to 85 feet deep. The hole near the D and DR reactors stretches across the size of more than seven football fields.

 

At N Reactor, removal of contaminated soil left 98 waste sites that had to be refilled.

 

It's Bernhard's goal for the finished backfill at those sites to mimic nature, not a soccer field.

 

"Something flat has much less potential real estate," he said.

 

A naturally undulating, landscape with rocks provides areas with shade for plants and animals, he said, and provides shelter from the Mid-Columbia winds. It catches seeds, helping them to take root rather than being blown away. It provides places for small animals, like mice and rabbits, to hide from predators, such as coyotes. And it helps hold moisture better than flat surfaces, where wind evaporation is greater.

 

The majority of Hanford land is planned to be used for preservation and conservation as cleanup is completed.

 

It's shrub-steppe habitat, which has been described as one of the most imperiled ecosystems in the nation, said Paula Call of the Department of Energy Site Stewardship Division.

 

The about 15 million acres of shrub-steppe that once covered much of Eastern Washington has given way to agriculture, leaving just 5 million acres. Only three large tracts remain -- the Yakama Nation reservation, the Army's Yakima Training Center and the Hanford nuclear reservation.

 

"The department does recognize the ecological value of the Hanford site," Call said.

 

But DOE and Washington Closure also found ways to reduce costs as they backfill large areas.

 

That has included backfilling some areas to just 86 percent, when acceptable to Hanford regulators. Some sites, including those near reactors, still must be filled to 100 percent.

 

Historically, each reactor had a borrow area to provide dirt for construction, such as building roads. Now those borrow pits are part of Hanford Reach National Monument land along the south side of the Columbia River, and DOE's goal is to remove as little additional soil from them as possible.

 

Leaving other areas a little shallower than before cleanup begins means less fill soil has to be dug up at borrow areas near each reactor and hauled to backfill sites.

 

Washington Closure also is using uncontaminated debris for some of the fill to reduce the need for borrow area dirt. It has used concrete and steel from former Hanford service buildings and the metal rails from railroad tracks as fill material.

 

That saves the cost of loading out and hauling the material to Hanford's central landfill, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. And it helps conserve space in the landfill, which has been expanded several times across shrub-steppe habitat.

 

In some places, including between N Reactor and the Columbia River, crews put in stakes to show others how deep they should place fill soil in different areas to create the final contoured landfill.

 

Heavy equipment operators are told just to leave dirt in piles, and then the last step of sculpting the ground is done as vegetation is planted.

 

Work has been completed on the largest single backfill site at Hanford, the deep dig near C Reactor.

 

"It was one big soup bowl," Bernhard said. "It was the ugliest thing you ever saw."

 

The land is starting to return to a more natural state. A little more than 100 acres have been seeded with native grasses and planted with 52,000 big sage, spiny hopsage and antelope bitterbrush grown from seeds collected at Hanford.

 

Crews have finished backfilling near N Reactor, and they now are working on the area near the D and DR reactors, the site of another dig down to 85 feet.

 

Workers will seed the area near N Reactor late this fall or in early spring.

 

"I'm thrilled with what Washington Closure Hanford has done," Call said. "It leaves the land in better ecological shape than when it started."

Yakima Herald-Republic

October 9, 2014

 

YAKIMA, Wash . -- The Cold War Patriots will hold two meetings in Yakima next week to provide health benefit information to former Hanford workers.

 

The group is a national nonprofit organization representing nuclear weapons-complex workers and uranium miners who sacrificed their health in service to the country, according to the group's website. 

 

The meetings will be held at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Oct. 16 at the Hilton Garden Inn, 401 E. Yakima Ave.

 

There are government programs available for workers affected by radiation or other toxic exposure, such as the Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, but navigating these programs can be a challenge. 

 

The Cold War Patriots aim to help former workers and their families learn about the benefits available to them as well as get involved with others dealing with similar issues.

 

For more information, visit the group's website at www.coldwarpatriots.org.

Isthmus Daily

October 8, 2014

 

Historical fiction comes in two basic flavors: the kind that teaches you about history as you read it (e.g., The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, 1008 pages about building a 12th century cathedral), and the kind that is more opaque, where the history, while important, is not so spelled out. I like both kinds, but I often get more of a kick out of the second type, especially when the historical details intrigue me enough to go off and read more on my own, later.

 

The Wives of Los Alamos is definitely in the second category. In spare prose, author TaraShea Nesbit tells the story of the community of scientists and their families who lived and worked in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the 1940s, where the scientists developed the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

Most of the scientists were civilian men, formerly university professors, many of them with families and children. The U.S. government moved them to New Mexico where they worked for years under top secret conditions. Their families were kept in the dark about the nature of their work, and everyone's contact with family members and friends from outside the community was strictly monitored. In some cases, where a scientist was well known within the field, names were changed as well. The restricted nature of their lives meant that the women, especially, formed close bonds with one another as they attempted to create a semblance of normal life in the isolated desert community.

 

Nesbit reinforces the close ties among the women by writing this novel in third person plural, which I thought would bother me, but which didn't. The wives speak as a group, about their children, the landscape, and the difficulties of being cut off from extended family. They reveal both the petty (whose government-issue house has a coveted bathtub) and the frightening aspects of their lives (what, exactly, are their husbands working on? Something very dangerous).

 

Real historical figures inhabit this novel (Robert Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr) but their influence is minimal. It's not the kind of historical novel where you play "guess who this character is?" It's more diffuse than that, because of the third person narrative voice and also because it's mostly about the wives, whose names we don't know anyway. After I finished reading it I read the Wikipedia page about the Manhattan Project. In a book club primer, Nesbit recommends another book, The Girls of Atomic City, by Denise Kiernan. This nonfiction title is also about the women who worked in the secret Oak Ridge, Tennessee uranium separating plant. Now I want to read that too.