Shrader
said most EM sites are in the first phase of reopening operations. The
decision to resume operations is based on many factors, such as health
data, remaining state and local restrictions, and facility preparedness,
he said.
EM
is carefully evaluating projects as sites ramp back up to full
operations. Potential impacts from the pandemic “will be different from
site to site as we move forward,” Shrader said.
He
said EM remains on track to complete a number of its stated priorities
for 2020. For instance, there is confidence the Salt Waste Processing
Facility will start up this year. Similarly, EM is hopeful for
completion of demolition at the East Tennessee Technology Park at Oak
Ridge, he said.
Shrader said EM appreciates its interactions with local communities that have stakes in its progress.
“We
have shared goals and shared interests in the sites being successful
and cleanups being successful,” Shrader said. “We always appreciate the
support that comes from the communities and we want to continue to build
on that and move forward the best we can.”
-Contributor: Beth Lisann
Oak Ridge Workers Successfully Bring Down ETTP’s Tallest Building
Crews use large winches to tear down a 180-foot tower of the Centrifuge Complex at Oak Ridge.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Workers accomplished a major feat during one of the largest and final demolition projects at the East Tennessee Technology Park
(ETTP) last week. They used powerful mechanical devices known as
winches to pull over the 180-foot tower portion of the Centrifuge
Complex. Click here to view a video of this project.
The
task was part of a larger effort to take down the Centrifuge Complex — a
series of structures originally built to develop, test, and demonstrate
the capability of centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment. The
last of these facilities ceased operation in the mid-1980s.
The Centrifuge Complex is one of the final major demolition projects remaining at ETTP as the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its cleanup contractor UCOR strive toward one of EM’s 2020 priorities known as Vision 2020 — the goal to complete demolition and major cleanup at ETTP by the end of the year.
“With
a constant focus on safety, our workforce has done an exemplary job
throughout this project and especially with the challenge of the tower,”
said Ken Rueter, UCOR president and CEO. “As one of the final major
facilities to be demolished at ETTP, this project is taking us a big
leap forward to achieving ETTP cleanup — a historic, first-ever complete
cleanup of a uranium enrichment complex.”
A
view of the last remaining portions of Oak Ridge’s once sprawling
Centrifuge Complex are shown here before crews pulled down the 180-foot
tower, at left. Workers will now focus on removing the debris and
finalizing demolition on the K-1210 complex, at right. The entire
project is scheduled for completion later this summer.
Workers used powerful winches to pull down the steel beams of the 180-foot tower of Building K-1220 at Oak Ridge.
The
tallest structure at ETTP, the Centrifuge Complex spanned 235,000
square feet and reached 180 feet in height in some locations. The
challenge involved identifying the best way to take the tower down
safely when conventional demolition equipment is intended for structures
only measuring approximately 100 feet in height.
Engineers
from OREM and UCOR evaluated a variety of methods to demolish the tower
based on safety, complexity, risk, and equipment availability. The
alternatives included winches, bulldozers, explosives, and a high-reach
processor to cripple the tower.
They
determined winches met all of the qualifications and were the best
choice. While the approach was a success, it involved a great deal of
preparation, including specialized training to operate the giant winches
capable of pulling down massive steel beams.
The
Centrifuge Complex was comprised of four sections. Crews are in the
final phases of taking down the last two sections of the complex. Those
include the K-1210 Complex, which served as a pilot plant for testing
feed, withdrawal, and depleted uranium hexafluoride transfer systems,
and the K-1220 Complex, which was used primarily to test production
centrifuges, and contained the 180-foot tower.
With
the tower down, workers will now focus on removing the debris and
finalizing demolition on the K-1210 complex. The entire project is
scheduled for completion later this summer.
Workers
already brought down the K-1004-J laboratory section, an original
Manhattan Project facility built for research and development. They also
finished tearing down the fourth section, the K-1200 facility, known as
the Advanced Machine Development Laboratory and Component Preparation
Laboratory.
-Contributor: Wayne McKinney
SRS Facility's Safe Shutdown Leads to $40 Million in Annual Cost Avoidance
Workers
install a new hoist in the Main Plant Process Building to be used for
moving waste boxes and drums and other work when the West Valley
Demonstration Project returns to full operations.
WEST VALLEY, N.Y. – An EM facility disposition crew recently replaced a hoist in the Main Plant Process Building, marking the West Valley Demonstration Project’s
(WVDP) first work activity in which workers donned personal protective
equipment while following safety protocols due to COVID-19.
Replacing
the hoist in the Equipment Decontamination Room, as WVDP operated in an
essential mission-critical posture, also signified progress toward a
broader project — the future demolition of the Main Plant Process
Building — included in EM’s priorities for 2020.
The
new equipment will be used to shift an aerial lift into a chemical
process cell and move boxes and drums filled with waste when the site
returns to full operations and crews resume deactivation work inside a
former reprocessing cell in the building.
Before
replacing the hoist, employees discussed questions and concerns with
supervisors and senior staff in a collaborative, inclusive manner. The
discussions focused on how to maintain social distancing while helping
one another don and doff personal protective equipment, including
respirators.
The
team agreed to a safe approach in which employees maintain six feet of
distance when possible and wear face masks. Only one worker at a time is
allowed to exit an area to avoid clustering, and they must cover the
respirator exhalation ports with towels to reduce exhaled vapor droplets
from escaping while the workers help each other put on equipment, among
other things.
EM WVDP Safety and Site Programs Team Leader Jennifer Dundas commended the team members for their pre-job briefing and work.
“Encouraging
employees to speak freely when confronting an issue or challenge is the
best way to solve a problem,” Dundas said. “It fosters the sharing of
ideas and allows everyone an opportunity to be part of the solution. In
the end, their agreed-upon solution helped them to safely complete this
work activity.”
Lessons
learned from the project will be applied to future cleanup work at the
site. The lessons include the importance of refocusing on safety, being
aware of changing conditions and new protocols, and getting reacquainted
with procedures, work packages, and radiation work permits.
-Contributor: Joseph Pillittere
WIPP’s Nuclear Waste Partnership Earns 83 Percent of Available Award Fee in FY19
A
worker operates a continuous mining machine 2,150 feet underground at
the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to create additional disposal rooms for
transuranic waste. The rooms are carved out of 250-million-year-old
bedded salt formation and measure 33 feet wide by 13 feet high, and are
as long as a football field minus the end zone.
CARLSBAD, N.M. – EM’s
Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) recently released the fiscal 2019 fee
determination for Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP), the
management-and-operations contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
In total, NWP earned approximately $14.3 million, representing 83
percent of the total fee available in fiscal 2019. NWP’s fee
determination included approximately $3.3 million in subjective award
fee, or 76.1 percent of the available award fee. The contractor also
earned approximately $11 million in fee tied to a set of
performance-based incentives (PBIs), or 85.2 percent of the total
available.
“I
carefully considered the contractor’s performance in five areas of the
fiscal year 2019 performance evaluation measurement plan in determining
the fee award,” said Kirk Lachman, who served as the CBFO deputy manager
and fee determination official.
The award fee determination for NWP’s performance in fiscal 2019 was based on the following five subjective criteria:
- Mission performance
- Regulatory compliance
- Management performance
- Safety and health performance
- Cost control
Some of NWP’s accomplishments in fiscal 2019 were:
- Implemented significant improvements to the transuranic (TRU) waste emplacement processes and procedures that allowed the contractor to maintain shipping rates at eight to 10 shipments per week in fiscal 2019.
- Initiated the first use of a battery electric load haul dump truck in the underground, improving the underground air quality.
- Developed and implemented a plan for recovery of a breached cesium source for another federal organization.
EM
also noted several areas for improvement, including the need to address
longstanding issues to prevent them from developing into more
significant problems; compliance with nuclear safety requirements;
untimely resolution of issues; and subcontractor oversight.
NWP
also had the ability to earn fee tied to PBIs, which represented
specific milestones or metrics. The PBIs available for NWP in fiscal
2019 included improved safety in underground operations; additional WIPP
underground air supply ventilation flow rate; WIPP line item capital
asset projects; general plant projects, infrastructure projects, and
major maintenance activities; radiological protection improvements; and
TRU waste emplacement.
More information on WIPP’s fiscal 2019 fee determination, including NWP’s fee scorecard, can be found here.
Outage Accomplishments Improve Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Operations
The
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s most recent maintenance outage included
work on ventilation fan motors and systems, shown here.
CARLSBAD, N.M. – EM Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
(WIPP) workers completed an immense amount of work during a two-day
planned power outage that occurred while the site operated in an
essential mission-critical posture due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The
WIPP engineering, maintenance, and operations departments completed a
lengthy to-do list during the outage that uncoupled power from the WIPP
core, including the waste handling. It was the culmination of a two-week
push to complete projects during the mission-critical period.
“Each
individual involved with this work scope showed several core values
like ownership, respect, continuous improvement, and teamwork,” WIPP
operations manager Don McBride said. “While we did have some hurdles to
clear, each individual pushed through these challenges and we
accomplished this work as a team.”
Substations in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant underground power everything from computers to giant mining machines.
Bulkheads
such as this one being installed in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
(WIPP) underground help control airflow in different loops, or circuits.
During the recent maintenance outage, remote controls connected to
WIPP’s Central Monitoring Room were added to some bulkheads.
Completed
work included extensive transformer and substation maintenance.
Substations in the WIPP underground power everything from desktop
computers to giant mining machines. Substations take a 13,800-volt feed
from a commercial provider and “step down” the high voltage into usable
voltages at the site. Workers also finished preventive maintenance on
waste hoist circuit breakers, and preventive maintenance, testing, and
other work on ventilation fans.
Crews
also performed work on three bulkheads, which help control airflow in
different loops in the WIPP underground, and added remote-control
capability to a louvered bulkhead, known as a regulator, that can
redirect air from one circuit to another. A large rollup door between a
processing bay and the waste hoist was repaired, and a longstanding
connectivity issue between a fire alarm panel and the underground
evacuation lights system was fixed.
An
audible alarm was added to the shutdown process for the Supplemental
Ventilation System, alerting the Central Monitoring Room in the event
the system shuts down. Workers also completed updates to the central
monitoring system, which monitors all critical systems at the site and
funnels information to the Central Monitoring Room, which is staffed
around the clock.
-Contributor: Roy Neese
Savannah River Site Completes Significant Computer System Upgrades
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EM Update | Vol. 12, Issue 14 | June 23, 2020
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Cleanup Program on Pace for Many 2020 Priorities, EM’s Todd Shrader Tells ECA
Despite unavoidable impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, EM remains on track this year to realize a number of its cleanup priorities, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Todd Shrader told leaders of the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) during its board meeting held virtually on June 18.
Shrader
updated the board members on the cleanup program’s activities during
the pandemic and the resumption of operations across EM field sites. ECA
is an organization of local governments adjacent to or impacted by DOE
activities.
Members
of the EM team in the field and at headquarters have been working
together to make progress even with the challenges due to COVID-19,
Shrader said, adding EM leadership has been pleased with the
productivity of employees who have been teleworking. Most of the EM
complex transitioned to an essential, mission-critical posture during
the pandemic, and cleanup sites have since begun to ramp back up to full
operations in a phased, deliberate approach.
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EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Todd Shrader
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The HB Line facility at the Savannah River Site is located on top of the H Canyon chemical separations facility.
AIKEN, S.C. – EM workers at the Savannah River Site (SRS) recently finished placing the HB Line, a facility once used to produce plutonium oxide, into a reversible safe shutdown while preserving its capabilities for future use, resulting in an annual cost avoidance of approximately $40 million.
“The
principal scope involved three key tasks: de-inventorying and flushing
facility product and cold chemical lines; dispositioning legacy
plutonium and uranium materials stored and previously used within the
facility; and laying up support systems no longer needed,” said Nick
Miller, HB Line manager.
Additional
work in the multi-year effort involved altering the security posture of
the facility, including a reduction in the protective force personnel;
implementing a revision to the facility’s technical safety requirements
to reduce facility minimum staffing requirements; and assimilating the H
Canyon — a chemical processing facility located underneath HB Line —
and HB Line organizations.
“More
so than any commitment delivery or cost reduction, I am most proud of
the courage and resilience of this team to deliver against the
uncertainty and adversity that comes along with a mission change such as
this,” Miller said. “I have always maintained shutting down a plant is
twice as hard as starting one up, mainly because you have to keep the
plant running safely in the meantime. The team executed this work all
in-house, safely, without having to bring on any additional resources.”
In
2018, DOE suspended plutonium oxide production at HB Line and directed
SRS management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear
Solutions (SRNS) to place HB Line in reversible safe shutdown.
“The
Department’s direction to preserve the capabilities of HB Line will
allow us to ensure the facility is ready for use in the case that it is
needed again,” SRNS Senior Vice President of Environmental Management
Operations Wyatt Clark said. “The missions performed in HB Line over the
years have a lasting impact on the site and the nation, and we are
appreciative that some of the extensive experience of its employees can
now be utilized in sister facilities across the site. Thank you to the
employees who worked to ensure a smooth transition and safe layup.”
Built
in the early 1980s, HB Line supported the production of plutonium-238, a
power source for the nation’s deep space exploration program, and to
recover legacy materials stored in H Canyon. HB Line has been used more
recently to make plutonium oxide, a non-weapons usable form of
plutonium.
-Contributor: Lindsey MonBarren
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West Valley Prepares for Future D&D Under New Safety Protocols
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Janice
Sandford, forefront, and other operators are shown in the Defense Waste
Processing Facility control room. Savannah River Remediation recently
upgraded its control system hardware and software.
AIKEN, S.C. – The EM program at the Savannah River Site
(SRS) has completed a significant and extensive upgrade to modernize
computer systems across the site's liquid waste facilities and maintain
cybersecurity industry standards.
In
a two-and-a-half-year process, SRS liquid waste contractor Savannah
River Remediation (SRR) upgraded the distributed control system (DCS) to
a newer platform and completed an entire computer hardware refresh. The
DCS is a specially designed automated control system software with
physical control elements located throughout SRS liquid waste
facilities, including the Defense Waste Processing Facility, Saltstone, and the Tank Farms. These facilities use processing equipment and instrumentation monitored and controlled by operator personnel via the DCS.
More
than 100 physical DCS controllers throughout the facilities were
replaced to be compatible with the new, modern software and its
processor requirements. The control system software consists of these
controllers within each facility, all connected by a communications
network. The controllers are used to interface with the facility
equipment and instrumentation.
This
upgrade was a multimillion-dollar infrastructure improvement effort and
a key part in the overall push for upgrading liquid waste systems,
according to SRR Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Project Manager Mark
Schmitz.
“Planning
for and executing infrastructure improvements is key to ensuring
reliable operations, all with an eye toward our core value of continuous
improvement,” Schmitz said. “This project is one on the many
infrastructure projects happening at SRR to ensure liquid waste
operations continue to be robust and efficient well into the future.”
Detailed
planning went into this project, including use of offline development
and test systems beforehand, and involved people from numerous groups
within SRR. The upgrade was successfully implemented with minimal
facility operational impacts.
The
DCS upgrade was an effort included in SRR’s strategic plans to position
the liquid waste system to safely operate at higher throughput rates
necessary to support the near-term start of operations of the Salt Waste
Processing Facility.
-Contributor: Colleen Hart
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