DOE-EM

February 4, 2016

Cincinnati -- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the award of a contract to Fluor Idaho, LLC, for the performance of ongoing Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) and Idaho Clean-up Project (ICP) work scopes in support of the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s cleanup mission at the Idaho Site. The value of the contract is $1.4 billion (including options), and the contract term five years. Two proposals were received in response to the solicitation.

In an effort to align contractor and taxpayer interests, the ICP Core contract is a performance based contract type that is primarily Cost-Plus-Incentive-Fee (CPIF) with some scope set up as Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee (CPFF). The contract includes Cost Incentive, Schedule Milestone, Annual Milestone, and Performance Incentive fees, and will allow DOE to incentivize the contractor for meeting the contract requirements.

At the conclusion of this contract it is anticipated that all Idaho Settlement Agreement (ISA) transuranic (TRU) waste will be dispositioned out of Idaho and all Agreement to Implement/CERCLA Record of Decision buried waste will be exhumed from the Subsurface Disposal Area.

The base scope to be performed under this contract includes: stabilizing and storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste; dispositioning transuranic waste; retrieving targeted buried waste; closing the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) tank farm; maintaining Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) remedial actions; and operating and maintaining the INTEC, Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC), and the Radioactive Scrap and Waste Facility (RSWF) facility infrastructure. Option scope to be performed under this contract includes: Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) operations. The IWTU option scope will be exercised at contract award.

The mission of the Office of Environmental Management is to complete the safe cleanup of the environmental legacy brought about from five decades of nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research.

DOE-EM

February 5, 2016

PADUCAH, Ky. – For more than 60 years, 60 electrical distribution transformers supplied some of the power to enrich uranium at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP). 

Each transformer supplied enough electricity to power four 3,000-horsepower motors, which is equivalent to providing electricity to 6,300 average size homes. 

The transformers contained oil with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), which helped with electrical insulation properties and cooling of internal parts while also being non-flammable. After the PGDP ceased operations, these transformers were disconnected from the power system, and the PCB oil was safely drained, shipped, and dispositioned.

“The removal of the PCB oil from the large transformers was a priority due to its potential impact on human health and the environment,” said Paducah Site Lead Jennifer Woodard of DOE’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. 

In compliance with the Toxic Substance Control Act, the Fluor Paducah Deactivation Project initiated removal of PCB oil from the transformers in early summer 2015. To ensure all PCB oil has been removed from the transformers, Environmental Protection Agency regulations required that the transformers be rinsed. Rather than purchasing a rinsing agent, such as kerosene, DOE and its contractors developed a unique idea to rinse the transformers with lube oil already at PGDP that also was scheduled for disposal. This idea saved nearly a half-million dollars, while enabling an existing product to be reused before its ultimate disposal. 

 “We were pleased we were able to bring forward a unique idea that recycled an existing product on the site,” Fluor Paducah Deactivation Project Deputy Program Manager Bob Nichols said.

“This ultimately saved DOE money that can be pumped back into the project.”

The last shipment of the total of nearly 100,000 gallons of transformer oil and 113,000 gallons of the rinsing agent were shipped off-site on Dec. 31, 2015 for disposal, completing the project ahead of schedule.

“Removing the PCB-containing oil from the transformers advances DOE’s goal of protecting the environment and workers while preparing the plant for future demolition,” Woodard said.

Knox Blogs

February 3, 2016

David Adler of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management in Oak Ridge will be the guest speaker at the Feb. 9 lunch meeting of Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He’ll speak about the agency’s cleanup program.

Adler has been with the DOE Oak Ridge team for about 25 years.

The event, which is open to the public, begins around 11 a.m. with social time. That’s followed by lunch (available from Soup Kitchen at $8 per) at 11:30 and the presentation at noon.

The meeting will be held at the UT Resource Center, 1201 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

Tri-City Herald

February 4, 2016

Tri-City leaders are asking Gov. Jay Inslee to choose wisely when he names the next person in charge of regulating the Hanford nuclear reservation.

“Now is not a time for a lapse in state leadership when it comes to Hanford,” the mayors of the Tri-Cities and West Richland and the chairmen of the Benton and Franklin county commissions said in a letter sent this week to the governor.

Jane Hedges, the manager of the Washington Department of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program, gave four months notice at the first of November that she planned to retire. The state, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, oversees the Department of Energy’s nuclear reservation.

This week she told the Hanford Advisory Board a replacement has yet to be selected. An interim manager likely will be appointed to serve for a couple of months until a permanent manager is named, she said.

“It is important for us to have as seamless of a transition to a new leadership as possible, as this is a critical time in the life of Hanford site cleanup,” said the letter to Inslee.

Local leaders said all parties — DOE, its contractors, state and federal regulators, tribes, local governments and citizens — need to work as a team “to keep the cleanup train on the tracks and headed toward the desired station.”

The state has two lawsuits pending against DOE, one over missed deadlines and another over worker protection from tank vapors.

Any weakness in a united front by the state and local communities could allow a loss of needed federal money for cleanup and more delays, the letter said.

Community leaders are concerned about the progress and direction of cleanup at Hanford, particularly the Hanford vitrification plant being built to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste into a stable glass form for disposal. The waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

“It remains a project under construction with no certain completion or startup date,” the letter said. The state should take the lead to make sure it begins operating in a way that is technically sound and economically feasible, it said.

As other DOE weapons sites are cleaned up, convincing senators from other states to pay for Hanford becomes more difficult, the letter said. Progress in Hanford cleanup must continue to be demonstrated, it said.

“We hear the crescendo of cynical chatter from other sites about how Hanford gets the lion’s share of the funding, but doesn’t seem to be making progress commensurate with that outsized funding,” the letter said.

Those concerns are compounded by the November national elections and what the results could mean for Hanford, it said.

Inslee should name a new program manager who is a mature leader with strong management skills and the ability to “navigate stormy political waters,” it said.

The letter praised Hedge’s leadership of the local oversight office since the start of 2006.

The Hanford Advisory Board gave Hedges a standing ovation this week and a letter saying it has been fortunate to have her expertise and enthusiasm for responsible Hanford cleanup.

The position of nuclear waste program manager is advertised as paying an annual salary of $75,452 to $110,000 annually.

The Nuclear Waste Program has an operating budget of about $21 million and a staff of about 90 workers. Education and experience in a scientific or technical field plus a master’s degree are among desired qualifications to manage the program.

Tri-City Herald

February 4, 2016

Officials from the National Park Service were in Richland on Thursday to kick off planning for the new Manhattan Project National Park.

More than 100 people came to an open house to hear about the Hanford portion of the new park, with additional sites in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Los Alamos, N.M. All three sites contributed to the race to develop the world’s first atomic bombs during World War II, amidst fears that the Nazis also were developing the weapon.

Participants shared their ideas for the park and asked questions at the open house. Here’s what’s known so far:

Q: Is the new park open?

A: Yes. And no. It officially opened when Department of Energy and National Park Service officials signed an agreement in November. But a park within a nuclear reservation with ongoing cleanup of contamination is complicated. Access is only by bus tours, for now.

Q: How can I get on a tour?

A: Tours are expected to be offered April through November. The tour schedule should be announced in March. Watch the Herald or check www.hanford.gov. You can call 509-376-1647.

Q: What do the tours cover?

A: Two sets of Hanford historical tours will be offered this year. One tour will go to B Reactor, which looks much as it did when it started up during World War II to produce plutonium for the world’s first atomic bomb. A favorite photo opportunity is posing in the operator’s chair at the reactor’s main control panel. The other tour will tell the story of the people who were forced to give up their homes, farms and businesses during World War II to make way for the secret Manhattan Project.

Q: Who can go on a tour?

A: Historical tours are open to anyone — no age or citizenship requirements. A third set of tours looking at environmental cleanup work across the Hanford nuclear reservation are open only to U.S. citizens at least 18 years old. There’s no word yet on how the Real ID law may affect what identification visitors may be required to show to board tour buses bound for the site.

Q: Is it safe?

A: The Department of Energy says it has gone to great lengths to ensure that the tour is safe and that any potential hazards for you and your children have been removed or sealed.

Q: What’s included in the new Hanford park?

A: It includes B Reactor, the world’s first full-scale reactor, and areas used just before the Manhattan Project. The former town sites of White Bluffs and Hanford still have a bank, high school and sidewalks through the brush. The tour bus stops at the Hanford Irrigation District's Allard Pump House and the Bruggemann agricultural warehouse. Hanford’s T Plant, a huge processing plant nicknamed the Queen Mary by workers, may be included when DOE no longer uses it. It was once used to separate plutonium from irradiated uranium fuel.

Q: Is there a park service visitor center?

A: Not now. Tours will leave from the B Reactor tour headquarters, 2000 Logston Blvd., Richland.

Q: What were some of the suggestions the public had for park officials?

A: A foundation should be established to purchase an “alphabet house,” one of Richland’s government-owned homes with different models named for letters of the alphabet.

The park should include a wall of names to recognize Manhattan Project workers.

Tours are nice, but people visiting parks want freedom to explore.

Include stories of all affected by the Hanford nuclear reservation — tribes, cleanup workers, downwinders, displaced settlers and Japanese victims of the atomic bomb fueled with Hanford plutonium. The stories of the new technologies, including those used in nuclear power and medicine, born from the Manhattan Project should also be covered.

Q: How can I contribute to the discussion?

A: Email Manhattan_project@nps.gov. Or send a letter to National Park Service, Denver Service Center – DSC-P, Manhattan Project Planning Team, 12795 West Alameda Parkway, P.O. Box 25287, Denver, CO 802250-0287. Comments become part of the publicly available record.

Aiken Standard

February 5, 2016

Advocacy for the Savannah River Site MOX facility continued Thursday when former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar said shutting down the facility would be “catastrophic.”

Lugar, a former Republican senator from Indiana, spent Thursday morning touring the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility – the main building in the MOX project that is expected to convert 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel.

The former politician has been a longtime MOX supporter, dating back to his co-sponsorship of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program – a program created to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states.

Through that program, Lugar was able to help generate the plutonium disposition agreement with Russia that states each nation must dispose of the same amount of plutonium.

Though Thursday’s visit gave Lugar a first-person view of the MOX project, it also was a day of concern because of President Barack Obama’s budget rollout scheduled for Feb. 9.

His proposal may include language to kill MOX and move forward with a downblending method that would dilute the plutonium and ship it to a repository.

“(Shutting down MOX) would be catastrophic in terms of expense,” said Lugar, referencing a figure from the National Nuclear Security Administration that it would cost $500 million to shut down MOX.

Furthermore, Lugar said breaking agreements with Russia and South Carolina would be ill-advised. If MOX is shut down, Russia likely won’t meet its end of the bargain, Lugar said.

He joined several other former and current politicians by denouncing last year’s cost projections for MOX.

In June, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said it would take $1 billion annually to properly fund MOX.

Also, a congressionally-mandated study from Aerospace concluded the life cycle cost of the program is $51 billion, compared to a $17 billion cost for downblending.

Lugar said the figures are well out of line.

“They have no relation to the actual cost involved; but there will be costs if we don’t get the job done, as well as safety costs in terms of worldwide security,” he said

Lugar’s visit came on the heels of a study released Wednesday by High Bridge Associates.

The group, which has worked with the Department of Energy in the past, was asked by the MOX Services Board of Governors to assess the viability of storing down-blended plutonium at New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot, or WIPP.

The study concluded that the WIPP is not a viable facility due to lack of storage space and adequate security.

Plutonium disposition language in Obama’s Feb. 9 budget proposal will be influenced by a report spearheaded by Moniz. December’s omnibus directed Moniz to study the downblending method and report his findings to Obama in time for the proposal.