EM Update | Vol. 10, Issue 19 | May 15, 2018
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EM Sites Mark National Infrastructure Week
In this issue of EM Update, we're highlighting equipment and facilities that support EM cleanup as part of National Infrastructure Week, May 14-21. Infrastructure is a critical component of EM sites across the country. At the Hanford Site, EM Richland Operations Office
contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA) provides site infrastructure
services such as water, sewer, electrical, road and railroad services to
enable cleanup work to continue. MSA’s Public Works organization
collaborates with other Hanford contractors and internal groups to
determine future infrastructure and service needs. The current focus is
on maintenance and modernization of the aging infrastructure and
right-sizing systems for future cleanup needs. Here an MSA employee
removes snow from Hanford roads, which see nearly 8,000 average daily
trips.
-Contributor: Renee Brooks
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – At DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM), construction progresses on an important component of infrastructure to enable large-scale cleanup at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Crews are building two secant pile walls to support the new Mercury Treatment Facility.
These walls will retain soils, control water seepage, and provide a
deep, secure foundation for the water intake structure to divert Upper
East Fork Poplar Creek waters into the headworks portion of the
facility. The new facility is vital to OREM because it opens the door
for demolition of Alpha-2, Alpha-4, Alpha-5, and Beta 4 — large,
deteriorated, former mercury-use facilities dating to the 1940s. After
their removal, OREM will remediate the soils beneath them. The facility
will limit and control potential mercury releases as crews take down
those buildings and address the soils that may disrupt the
mercury-contaminated area on the west end of Y-12. When operational, the
facility will treat up to 3,000 gallons of water per minute and include
a 2-million-gallon storage tank to collect stormwater. The south secant
pile wall will consist of 65 piles installed at depths of 20 to 40
feet, and it is scheduled for completion in November 2018. The north
wall will consist of 19 piles drilled approximately 16 feet deep, and
that work is scheduled for completion in July 2018. An artist rendering
shows the completed secant pile walls to support the headworks portion
of the Mercury Treatment Facility at Y-12.
-Contributor: Ben Williams
AIKEN, S.C. – H Canyon, the only operating production-scale nuclear
chemical separation facility in the U.S., is a critical component of Savannah River Site
infrastructure to address EM cleanup by processing legacy spent
nuclear fuel from across the DOE complex. The more than 60-year-old facility can support a variety of missions.
-Contributor: Lindsey MonBarren
LAS VEGAS
– The connection between federal agencies and the communities in which
they are located is vital in building meaningful community partnerships.
That is why the EM Nevada Program funds a grant to support emergency
response capabilities in communities near the Nevada National Security Site
(NNSS). Through this grant program, which is based on $0.50 per cubic
foot of classified, low-level and mixed low-level waste disposed at the
NNSS, funding has been provided for local infrastructure projects such
as the 7,000-square-foot ambulance barn in Beatty and the upgraded
communications towers in Lincoln County. In total, more than $15 million
has been provided to rural counties near the NNSS to enhance emergency
response capabilities. More information on the grant assistance program can be found here.
-Contributor: Kevin Schmidt
MOAB, Utah – The pumping system for the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project's
settling pond provides an important fresh water supply to the Moab
site. Some of its functions include groundwater injection, irrigation,
and dust control.
-Contributor: Honora Thompson
WEST VALLEY, N.Y. – The Remote-Handled Waste Facility supports cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project.
The estimated 11,000-square-foot facility can process low-level and
transuranic waste, and is used for container opening, visual inspection,
sampling, dewatering, waste segregation and size reduction,
non-destructive assay, and packaging.
-Contributor: Joseph Pillittere
Collaborative SRS Pilot to Increase Spent Nuclear Fuel Processing Rates
An
operator takes a sample of process solution in the sample aisle at H
Canyon. Under the initiative to improve spent nuclear fuel processes,
online monitors will eliminate the need to pull samples for lab analysis
during routine process operations.
AIKEN, S.C. – A new initiative to improve spent nuclear fuel processes at the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) H Canyon could save $2 billion over the life of the chemical separations facility.
EM and Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations contractor, have teamed with the Savannah River National Laboratory
(SRNL) to develop a charter for a process of Collaborative Innovation
(COIN) to develop technology to improve safety and quality, and
increases spent nuclear fuel processing rates by 50 percent.
One way to do that is through the use of online monitors.
“These measure the solution real-time instead of an operator having to
physically pull a sample and take it to the Analytical Laboratory for
testing,” said Ed Sadowski of SRNL. “This will save both time and
money.”
Sadowski noted that the initiative will cost $13 million in initial
investment to install the online monitoring capabilities, and could
result in approximately $2 billion in savings over the life of the
canyon.
“The COIN team will continue to engage in the implementation of the
recommendations to evaluate opportunities for efficiency improvements,”
Sadowski said.
Another COIN improvement to reduce the number of samples submitted to
the SRNL Analytical Laboratory during normal process operations is to
take advantage of the inherent H Canyon chemical process, physics, and
chemistry. Uranium isotopics only need to be measured after mixing
solutions of varying isotopics and not in every tank, as they once were,
since H Canyon’s chemical processes cannot alter the uranium
isotopics.
The team also will find alternative methods to the thermal ionization
mass spectrometer (TIMS), which provides uranium concentration and
isotopic measurements. TIMS is nearing the end of its service life and
is expensive to replace. The team identified several alternative methods
to provide concentration and isotopic measurements with enough accuracy
for H Canyon’s needs.
COIN team members are scheduled to implement the initiative in three stages by 2021. Its phases include:
H Canyon is the nation’s only operating, production-scale,
radiologically shielded chemical separations facility. Uranium is
recovered from spent nuclear fuel through a complex chemical process, in
which fuels are dissolved and run through solvent extraction cycles
that remove impurities present in the fuel. During this process, nuclear
regulations require samples of the uranium solution be tested
periodically to ensure the proper concentration of uranium.
-Contributor: Lindsey MonBarren
Rep. Dan Newhouse Visits EM’s World-Class Training Facility at Hanford
RICHLAND, Wash. – U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington recently toured EM’s Volpentest Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response Federal Training Center (HAMMER) at the Hanford Site.
Newhouse received information about HAMMER’s partnerships, world-class
facility, training programs, and how the site’s workforce and employees
from other federal agencies use the center as a valuable resource.
Following the tour, the congressman provided remarks and fielded
questions from HAMMER staff. Here Newhouse is shown on the tour
with Steven Maiuri with Richland Operations Office contractor Mission Support Alliance.
-Contributor: Lori Araujo
Idaho Site Preparing New Demonstration of Waste Treatment Unit
The new conical shape of the Denitration Mineralization Reformer.
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – EM’s Idaho Site is preparing to conduct another Integrated Waste Treatment Unit
(IWTU) demonstration, focusing on fluidization of the facility’s
primary reaction vessel after the project team completed improvements
this past year.
The new test follows a 2017 demonstration that successfully tested the IWTU’s redesigned auger-grinder, which transfers treated waste material to downstream processes.
In previous demonstrations, instabilities occurred within the
Denitration Mineralization Reformer (DMR), including sudden temperature
changes and clumping of bed product material due to lack of carbon
dioxide in the vessel. Those conditions are caused by weaknesses in the
DMR design and the cohesive characteristics of the waste as it converts
to a solid carbonate product. The bed material began to stick together
like sand castles, greatly hampering fluidization inside the DMR.
The team redesigned the DMR’s interior from a half-moon to cone shape
and replaced the fluidizing gas rails as a result of extensive studies,
computer modeling, and the operation of a pilot plant in Colorado.
Superheated steam is delivered through many small nozzles to suspend and
fluidize the billions of tiny beads in the vessel. During the
steam-reforming process, liquid waste is injected among the superheated
beads, which are coated with the waste and converted to a carbonate
product like the creation of a pearl.
“The pilot plant at Hazen Research underwent these same modifications,
so we’ve got a good look at how performance was improved during its
operation,” said Joe Giebel, chief engineer for Fluor Idaho, EM’s Idaho
Site cleanup contractor. “This demonstration run is all about
fluidization.”
Hazen operated the pilot plant for nearly 100 days in 2017 to assess a
wide range of operating conditions and equipment configurations.
Other factors critical to optimum fluidization include the rate at
which the waste product is introduced into the DMR and the product
particle size. The operating team plans to maintain a
1.5-gallon-per-minute waste feed rate during the demonstration and
control the product particles to an average size of 300 microns (about
the size of coarse coffee grounds) before transferring them out of the
DMR.
The demonstration is scheduled for up to 30 days of waste feed
followed by a second run of up to 50 days after performance expectations
are met.
The team is focused on determining how effectively the changes improve
fluidization, according to Craig Olson, Fluor Idaho IWTU manager.
Because the IWTU hasn’t operated for nearly a year due to its
modifications, Olson said his team will closely monitor how the system
responds to the equipment modifications and process control changes.
Construction of the IWTU was completed in 2012 to treat 900,000
gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste remaining in the tank farm at the
Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center. Six demonstrations
using simulated waste have occurred at the IWTU to test its
steam-reforming process. Each run ended prematurely due to equipment
problems or process instabilities caused by insufficient fluidization.
-Contributor: Erik Simpson
Hanford Crews Complete First Work Phase for Protective Barrier System
Workers
recently finished the SX Farm evapotranspiration basin, shown in light
brown. It will collect and evaporate water drained from new interim
surface barriers to be installed later this spring over Hanford’s SX
Tank Farm, shown at the right.
RICHLAND, Wash. – Workers recently finished the first phase of constructing a new protective barrier system for one of Hanford’s underground tank waste storage farms.
EM’s Office of River Protection
(ORP) and contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS)
finished work on a lined evapotranspiration basin — roughly the size of
two-and-a-half football fields — to collect and evaporate water drained
from new high-density, modified asphalt surface barriers to be installed
later this spring over SX Tank Farm.
The interim barriers will help prevent rain and snow melt from
intruding into the 15 underground tanks or percolating into the soil and
driving existing contaminants closer to groundwater. The barriers are
temporary structures to remain in place until a final closure decision
is made for the tank farm.
Crews excavated approximately 28,000 cubic yards of earth for the
basin, south of SX Farm. They placed a series of drain pipes on a
special liner in the basin floor and covered them with three feet of
backfill that was hydroseeded to grow a customized mix of native plants
and grasses to help evaporate the water. Hydroseeding is a planting
process that uses a slurry of seed and mulch as an alternative to the
traditional process of broadcasting or sowing dry seed. WRPS’s
Environmental Protection group identified plants with relatively shallow
root structures that won’t extend deep enough to damage the liner.
Another major element of the project was the placement of nearly 800 linear feet of storm water collection piping.
Working with engineering drawings from the 1950s and ’60s was a
challenge, according to WRPS Construction Manager Jeremey White.
“We found things were close, but not quite where they were supposed to be,” he said.
The team used ground-penetrating radar to help locate buried utility
lines of all types — electrical, raw water, instrument/dry air, and
drain lines. Once lines were found, the team determined the best route
for weaving the large 18-inch drainage pipe through the maze of
abandoned-in-place and in-service lines.
Advanced planning helped workers to avoid cutting in-service lines,
but extensive cutting and capping of abandoned lines was required, with
all the necessary safety precautions.
“We were prepared to deal with high contamination, asbestos, and airborne radioactivity,” White said.
Workers installed three catch basins, three stormwater vaults, and a
wastewater separator. The vaults, designed to handle output from a
100-year flood, weighed nearly six tons each.
“This has been a huge undertaking, and the team has done a great job
in overcoming many obstacles as we continue to make progress on this
project,” ORP Tank Closure Manager Jan Bovier said.
-Contributor: Jerry Holloway
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