ECA Update: September 25, 2015
Published: Fri, 09/25/15
DOE National Cleanup Workshop Sept. 29-30 Los Alamos Daily Post September 23, 2015 LINK Washington, D.C. – Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 29-30, the Department of Energy (DOE), in cooperation with the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) and Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), will hold the first DOE National Cleanup Workshop at the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, VA. The workshop brings together senior DOE executives, officials from DOE sites, industry executives, local government officials, and other stakeholders. Topics will include major cleanup successes planned for the next two years, contract and project management improvement, efforts to develop new cleanup technologies, and more. Notable confirmed speakers include:
More than 350 attendees are expected. Free online streaming will available at http://energy.gov/em/doe-national-cleanup-workshop. This website will be live Tuesday, Sept. 29 for viewing. As the largest environmental cleanup program in the world, EM has been charged with the responsibility of cleaning 107 sites nationwide, totaling a combined area equal to Rhode Island and Delaware. For more information on the workshop, including a full agenda and registration information, visit www.cleanupworkshop.com. DOE Releases Request for Information/Sources Sought for Savannah River Site Liquid Waste Services DOE-EM September 22, 2015 LINK Cincinnati -- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued a Request for Information (RFI) / Sources Sought for Liquid Waste services at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The current Liquid Waste services contract at SRS is held by Savannah River Remediation, LLC and expires on June 30, 2017. The RFI/Sources Sought is seeking to solicit input via capability statements from interested parties with the specialized capabilities necessary to meet the requirements for the SRS Liquid Waste services. Within these capability statements, DOE is seeking feedback from contractors and other interested parties regarding options for innovative approaches for the performance of the major Elements of Scope as well as insight into potential contracting alternatives. This market research will assist DOE with identifying interested and capable sources and developing its acquisition strategy. Key market research goals include identifying and minimizing barriers to competition, evaluating small business capabilities, identifying risks, identifying potential requirements definition and contract alternatives, and identifying appropriate request for proposal and contract terms and conditions. An Industry Day will be announced at a future date. Additional information is available at: https://www.emcbc.doe.gov/SEB/SRSLiquidWaste/ Lawmakers urged to fund environmental management work, avoid government shutdown Aiken Standard September 16, 2015 LINK Liquid waste work at the Savannah River Site and other environmental management missions throughout the Department of Energy should be funded beyond Sept. 30 to avoid a government shutdown, said Chuck Smith, the president of the Energy Communities Alliance. Smith, also an Aiken County Council member, sent a letter Monday to congressional appropriations committee members, urging legislators to properly fund various missions, including the treatment of liquid waste at SRS. The letter was sent to U.S. Sens. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi; Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland; Nita Lowey, D-New York; and U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Kentucky. The letter represents the interests of the Energy Communities Alliance, an organization of local governments that are adjacent to or impacted by Department of Energy activities. The group, made up of government leaders from Washington, D.C., Los Alamos and other DOE communities, is designed to bring those communities together to establish policy positions and promote shared interests. Smith’s letter referenced the federal government shutdown in 2013, stating it had “significant economic consequences for our communities, including the loss of businesses, jobs, and revenues needed to provide local services. It also caused severe disruptions to work at national laboratories.” Locally, the shutdown resulted in 1,400 furloughs for Savannah River Remediation, the SRS liquid waste contractor, and 270 furloughs for Wackenhut, now Centerra, the site’s security contractor. “We strongly urge you not to go down this path again,” Smith wrote. “In October 2013, disruptions at cleanup sites cost two to three weeks of productivity. Lapses in funding result in DOE missing agreed to clean up milestones and cost more in fines and litigation. More importantly, any disruption of funding may risk worker and public safety.” Smith noted that both chambers of Congress have chosen to increase funding for the environmental program above last year’s spending and the DOE request for fiscal year 2016. He added that the Energy Communities Alliance will be in Washington, D.C., near the end of the month to further advocate that legislators fund federal government programs in a timely manner. “There are a lot of moving parts that are gonna be affected if we’re shut down, so it’s absolutely a necessity doesn’t happen,” Smith said. Meyer promoted at DOE Office of River Protection Tri-City Herald September 17, 2015 LINK Carrie Meyer has been promoted to director of the Office of Communications and Information Management at the Department of Energy Hanford Office of River Protection. She has more than 20 years of experience in communications, public affairs and marketing in the commercial and federal sectors. She joined the DOE Richland Operations Office in 2007 and transferred to the Office of River Protection in 2008. She has performed detail assignments with the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the DOE Office of the Under Secretary. She graduated from DOE’s Executive Potential Program this year, completing a year-long program in leadership development. DOE appoints three new members to environmental advisory board EIN News September 22, 2015 LINK Oak Ridge, Tenn. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has appointed three new members to its Oak Ridge Environmental Management advisory board. Martha Deaderick, Mike Ford, and Dennis Wilson were introduced at the Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board’s (ORSSAB) September meeting. ORSSAB is a federally chartered citizens’ panel that provides independent advice and recommendations to DOE, which is responsible for the cleanup of the Oak Ridge Reservation. Martha Deaderick is a retired educator from Kingston who worked for the city school system in Oak Ridge from 1975 until 2004, where she specialized in English, social studies, Tennessee history, and special education. She received her bachelor’s degree in education and a special education certification from the University of Tennessee. She is a member of Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning and Oak Ridge Schools Retired Teachers. Mike Ford, a Knoxville resident, is a technical sales representative for The Garland Company, a manufacturer of high-performance roofing and building envelope materials. Prior to his current position, Ford served as a youth pastor in Paducah, KY., and then as an advertising representative in Nashville. He is the president of the Building Owners and Managers Association, and his is a member of the International Facility and Management and the Tennessee School Plant Management Association. Ford received his bachelor’s degree in psychology/religious studies from Harding University in Arkansas. Dennis Wilson lives in Rockwood and is a retired technology manager. Most recently, Wilson was the director of technology and intellectual property for Johnson-Diversey Products. While much of his 39-year career was focused on technology and intellectual property management, his early career included work as a resin and polymer chemist that resulted in seven global patents. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a masters and doctoral degrees in material science from the University of Connecticut. Wilson also has certifications in a wide range of technology and management courses from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and the University of Wisconsin. Deaderick, Ford, and Wilson have been appointed to two-year terms on the ORSSAB, and they can serve for three terms. ORSSAB meets the second Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the DOE Information Center, Office of Science and Technical Information, 1 Science.gov Way in Oak Ridge. Meetings of the board are open to the public, and notices are posted on the board’s web site: www.energy.gov/orssab. Congressional budget leader optimistic on Hanford funding Tri-City Herald September 22, 2015 LINK The Hanford nuclear reservation budget will be OK for the fiscal year that starts next week, predicted Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who expects to enter negotiations with his Senate colleagues soon on the funding bill that includes the Department of Energy. Simpson, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, which has jurisdiction over Hanford, visited the Tri-Cities this week for updates on Hanford as the guest of Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash. “We have got to get this right,” Simpson said about Hanford cleanup. “I’ve told people for 20 years now if we end up contaminating the Columbia River, we can kiss nuclear power goodbye.” Hanford produced plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program at nine reactors during the Cold War. Simpson is familiar with issues not only from past visits to Hanford, but also because his hometown of Idaho Falls has similar issues. The Tri-Cities and Idaho Falls are home to workers at both a DOE nuclear environmental cleanup project and a DOE national laboratory. This week he met with members of a Hanford working group established by Newhouse, Hanford contractor officials and DOE Hanford officials about the challenges for Hanford in the budget. In the spring, as the House debated its version of the DOE spending bill, Simpson told Newhouse on the floor of the House that he would work to ensure that the Hanford tank farms and vitrification plant had the money needed to move forward safely, efficiently and in a timely manner. The proposed House budget would restore much of the cuts for Hanford work under the Richland Operations Office, but decrease the budget for the vit plant and tank farms in the wake of concerns that DOE was not providing enough information to Congress about unresolved technical issues. Most cleanup sites need steady, reliable funding to keep the workforce stable and continue multi-year projects, Simpson said. Although the possibility of a federal government shutdown remains if a spending measure is not passed, Simpson said the majority of Republicans will work to make sure that does not happen. A government shutdown “is never good policy and never good politics,” he said. He also discussed a recently released report requested by appropriations leaders looking at risk at DOE cleanup sites. A recommendation that states be barred from filing lawsuits over cleanup goes beyond what was requested of the review, Simpson said. The state of Washington has two active Hanford lawsuits in federal court. Lawsuits require money that could be spent on cleanup, but “you do not want to take away a state’s or a citizen’s right to have a say in how government manages projects,” Simpson said Duties restructured for Savannah River Site salt waste work Aiken Standard September 17, 2015 LINK Stakeholders involved in the construction of the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility are restructuring responsibilities to build the facility. Site officials announced last week that the Department of Energy, Savannah River Remediation, the SRS liquid waste contractor, and Parsons, the salt waste contractor, are teaming up to get the salt waste facility ready for DOE’s Operational Readiness Review set for December 2018. Savannah River Remediation, or SRR, will tie the salt waste facility into existing liquid waste facilities. This includes the below-grade pipes that will transfer liquid waste to and from the facility, sealing plates and valves along the piping and conducting general operations and maintenance. Parsons is the prime contractor to DOE and is responsible for the design, technology, construction and related duties for project. Construction of the Salt Waste Processing Facility is currently 89 percent complete and is on track to be finished by May 2016, and operating by December 2018. Keith Harp, a program manager for the liquid waste contractor, said the contractor’s support of the salt waste project intensifies as it nears the end of construction. “It is imperative that all of the Salt Waste Processing Facility-related liquid waste scope be completed and operational prior to the startup,” Harp said. Frank Sheppard, Parsons vice president and project manager for the facility, spoke about the necessity of communication in starting up the facility. “I am very encouraged by the cooperative nature of all the key players and the professionalism and expertise demonstrated in teaming together to achieve successful operations,” Sheppard said. The move comes after an announcement in August that salt waste treatment at the site would be reduced to an average of 40 percent of its maximum capacity over the next few years. While waiting for the salt waste facility to be completed, SRS has been using an interim low-capacity salt waste processing system. The technical name for the system is the Actinide Removal Process/Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit. The unit processed 551,000 gallons in 2014, although it has capabilities to process 3 million gallons of salt waste per year. Even with issues surrounding the salt waste facility, the Department of Energy still believes the facility is the best path forward and expects to meet the December 2018 projection, according to an SRS update last month. “The Department recognizes the past challenges with the construction of the Salt Waste Processing Facility and has worked with Parsons, the contractor on the project, to address the issues,” officials wrote in the update. “We continue to diligently oversee the construction activities to ensure that it meets the new schedule.” Most hazardous Hanford plant nears start of tear down Tri-City Herald September 20, 2015 LINK What may be the most hazardous facility ever to be taken down by the Department of Energy in the United States could be ready for the start of demolition at Hanford in a matter of months. The goal is to start tearing down the main processing buildings of the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant in the coming spring to meet a legal deadline to have the plant razed to the ground by September 2016. The Department of Energy is at risk of missing that deadline, but work is moving forward safely to try to meet it, said Stephanie Schleif, the new facilities transition project manager for the Washington Department of Ecology. The state is thrilled with progress, said Jane Hedges, Washington’s nuclear waste program manager. “You can’t imagine how difficult this work is,” said Doug Shoop, DOE deputy site manager for the Richland Operations Office. Shoop called it DOE’s most hazardous facility to be demolished during a recent meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board in Pasco. Work has been under way to clean out the plant since the 1990s, when efforts began to stabilize liquid plutonium left there at the end of the Cold War. In recent years, workers have been cleaning out and removing tanks and contaminated glove boxes in the plant. To date, 95 percent of the large pieces of equipment, including glove boxes and laboratory vent hoods, have been removed. That includes the heavily contaminated glove boxes that were the site of the explosion in 1976 that contaminated worker Harold McCluskey, who came to be known as the Atomic Man. “We have been profoundly impressed with what has been accomplished by the work force,” said Pam Larsen, a member of the Hanford Advisory Board. The board sent a letter of congratulations Friday to DOE, thanking workers past and present who have worked on the successful decontamination and demolition of the plant. Although the main processing buildings of the plant still are being cleaned out, 64 of 81 facilities on the Plutonium Finishing Plant campus have been demolished or removed. “Especially, the board wishes to congratulate and recognize the outstanding accomplishments of the hands-on work force,” the letter said. “They have labored safely, hour after hour, in challenging and difficult conditions to remove the plutonium from contaminated glove boxes, the critically damaged McCluskey Room and other equipment for repackaging and off site shipment.” Their work exemplifies “the very best of professional and technically initiated cleanup activities,” the letter said. The Plutonium Finishing Plant was the final stop at Hanford for plutonium produced at Hanford reactors during the Cold War for the nation’s nuclear weapons program. Liquid plutonium was formed into metal “buttons” the size of hockey pucks to be shipped to the country’s weapons production facilities. The difficulties of clean-out work in areas with high contamination levels have ranged from using 50-year-old equipment — like a built-in crane that frequently broke down as it was used to move tanks contaminated with plutonium — to protective gear worn by workers that limited visibility and added to the threat of heat stress. DOE’s motto for the work has been “steady, slow, safe progress,” Shoop said. “That’s what is important,” he said. “We don’t need a lot more money, a lot more crews out there. We just need the same people out there finishing the job because they are very well trained and doing a very good job.” With some of the most difficult work at the plant tackled in recent months, there has been an increase in the number of work-related injuries and radiological events this summer, the staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has noted. In late July and August, there were incidences of workers’ skin becoming contaminated with radiological material. In some cases, seams failed in a new type of protective suit worn by workers, and in other cases, contamination spread as the suits were removed, the safety board staff said in its reports. The workers have been in an area where contamination is highly mobile and easily spread. The workers’ skin was decontaminated to levels at which the radioactive material could no longer be detected, according to the safety board staff reports. A stand down was held earlier this month to re-orient workers to thinking about safety, said Bryan Foley, DOE deputy project director for the Plutonium Finishing Plant work. “This year was the first time in many years where we had three high-hazard jobs going on in the PFP footprint all in the same year,” he said. They included work on two high-hazard glove boxes, work to take apart the glove boxes in the McCluskey Room and work to decontaminate the canyon floor of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility. Workers would stand outside the glove boxes and look through heavy, leaded-glass windows as they reached their hands through gloves attached at portals to conduct work with plutonium and other radioactive materials inside. The Plutonium Reclamation Facility was added to the plant as Cold War demand for plutonium increased. It increased output by recovering plutonium from scrap material that otherwise would have been wasted. This spring, workers removed the last of the highly contaminated “pencil tanks” from the high-ceiling canyon area of the facility. The skinny tanks, which were hung on racks, were shaped to prevent an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. Workers have removed or have prepared for removal 233 of the Plutonium Finishing Plant’s 238 glove boxes. Some will be taken out after the walls of the plant are pulled down around them. The remaining five still must be disconnected from the ventilation system. Two of the high-hazard glove boxes that stand more than 12 feet high and still contain extensive contamination are being cut up inside the plant. Remaining work before tear down of the plant includes readying the last five glove boxes, all of them along the Plutonium Reclamation Facility canyon, and grouting the canyon floor. In the main part of the plant, work is continuing to remove contaminated ventilation ducts and to deactivate the ventilation system. Asbestos removal also must be done. The tentative plan for demolition of the large, main facility of the plant calls for starting with tearing down the Plutonium Reclamation Facility, then the Americium Recovery Facility, which includes the McCluskey Plant. Both were add-ons to the main processing facility, which would be torn down next. Before demolition of the main plant starts, the emergency preparedness program will be checked, Shoop said. “We want to test that system and make sure it is tiptop in the unlikely event we do have an emergency,” such as a release of radioactive material during demolition, he said. Significant work will remain to be done after the plant is torn down to the ground, said Dennis Faulk, Hanford project director for the Environmental Protection Agency, which will be the regulator for the next phase of work. A large number of sites where waste was released will remain on the campus, although most are expected to be small, he said. In addition, the plant’s basement will remain. Hanford board to meet in The Dalles The Dallas Chronicle September 17, 2015 LINK SALEM — The Oregon Hanford Cleanup Board will meet Sept. 21-22 at The Discovery Center in The Dalles, 5000 Discovery Drive. For 25 years, Hanford has been the site of the world’s largest environmental cleanup program, the result of wastes created during the production of plutonium for America’s nuclear weapons program. Cleanup will continue for at least the next several decades. Among the items on the meeting agenda, the board will receive a briefing on the draft Hanford Site-Wide Risk Review Project and an update on Hanford’s tank waste treatment plans. The public will have an opportunity to comment each day. A full meeting agenda is on the Oregon Department of Energy’s website: www.oregon.gov/energy/NUCSAF/Pages/hcb/hwboard.aspx. The Oregon Hanford Cleanup Board provides policy advice to Governor Kate Brown and the Oregon Legislature on a wide range of issues regarding cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site in southeast Washington, just north of Oregon’s border. Part of the board’s mission is to protect the Columbia River and Oregon from possible contamination. The board is composed of citizens, a representative of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, a representative of the governor, state agency representatives and state legislators. ODOE serves as staff to the board. Savannah River Site secures Swiss uranium shipment EnergyBiz September 17, 2015 LINK About 2.2 kilograms of highly enriched uranium spent fuel from Switzerland has landed at the Savannah River Site. The material's return to the United States is part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, a National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, program meant to reduce and protect vulnerable nuclear and radiological material located at civilian sites worldwide. The uranium is from the AGN-211-P reactor, a training and research reactor by the Department of Physics at the University of Basel. According to the NNSA, the University of Basel worked with the administration and others to package and transport 13 irradiated uranium fuel elements in a spent nuclear fuel cask that was then shipped to Charleston. The material was then transported to its final destination at SRS. "We are delighted to share this important milestone with the Swiss Government and the Paul Sherrer Institute, and want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the important partnership that made this possible," said NNSA deputy administrator Anne Harrington. "Our collaboration advances global efforts to secure, consolidate and minimize the use of highly enriched uranium so that it does not fall into the hands of terrorists." As part of the global initiative, the material would be reprocessed through the site's H Canyon, the only chemical separations plant in the U.S. SRS officials announced in April that the facility was restarting the spent fuel processing capability for H Canyon. The capability allows highly-enriched uranium to be converted into low-enriched uranium, which can then be used to make fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. But the timetable for starting the reprocessing is unknown after multiple safety violations prompted Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the site's management and operations contractor, to initiate a halt on all nonessential activities. The safety pause was announced last week after contractor employees improperly stored plutonium by wrongfully spacing out plutonium containers at the site's HB-Line, a facility that sits above H Canyon and assists in the disposition process of the materials. The Aiken Standard attempted to contact NNSA officials to determine if the safety pause would impact the timetable for processing the material, but did not receive a response before press time. Under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, SRS has received thousands of spent fuel shipments for reprocessing since 1996, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials. Sandoval: Feds lack land, water rights for Yucca Mountain Las Vegas Sun September 17, 2015 LINK CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval has told federal authorities that the proposed high-level nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain is unsuitable because the government doesn’t have land and water rights it needs in order to proceed with the project Sandoval made the notification in a letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which was read at a public hearing Thursday in Amargosa Valley during a hearing the site. The hearing focused on a new environmental impact study of the project. The governor said other solutions must be sought to handle the spent nuclear waste. “Continuation of the NRC Yucca Mountain licensing process actually impedes progress towards finding workable and expedient solutions by diverting our focus,” said the letter, which was delivered at the hearing by Robert Halstead, director of the Nevada Office of Nuclear Projects. The NRC says a draft report of the environmental study shows that contamination levels are low and not a danger to humans. But Nevadans have expressed concerns over reports that groundwater from Yucca would carry a small amount of radioactive waste into the nearby town of Amargosa Valley and — if conditions were right — into Native American lands in Death Valley. Halstead has asked the NRC for a 60-day extension to allow the state to conduct a full review of the environmental report Halstead said in his prepared remarks that “Nevada will also challenge the scope of the draft (environmental impact report) and its failure to consider relevant new information about events and developments since 2008.” The NRC held a public meeting Tuesday in Las Vegas on the environmental impacts of ground and other sources of water if the dump is built. The NRC must decide whether to grant a license to the Department of Energy to proceed with construction. |
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