Staff Reports
NS&D Monitor
8/28/15
DOE Takes Key Step Toward Y-12 Mercury Treatment Plant
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management has received headquarters approval for Critical Decision-1, establishing the preliminary baseline for a new mercury treatment facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
“I’m very pleased with the progress that we’ve made,” said Sue Cange, DOE’s environmental manager in Oak Ridge.
The CD-1 approval means the Oak Ridge team can proceed with design on the facility. URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), the DOE cleanup contractor, is heading the design effort.
Cange said the federal agency is still evaluating how the construction contract will be handled.
Tackling the mercury contamination at Y-12 – a legacy of the Tennessee plant’s lithium work in developing thermonuclear weapons in the Cold War – is often touted as a high priority by DOE and environmental regulators even though critics have suggested progress over the past three decades has been too slow.
While lauding the CD-1 milestone, DOE also acknowledged that the estimated cost of the project is now $146 million. That’s about $26 million more than previous estimates. According to Mike Koentop, executive officer in the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, the increased cost is associated with new capabilities added to the project.
Under the revised plans, the treatment facility will include a system to collect and store up to 2 million gallons of stormwater. That is intended to reduce the risk of mercury-contaminated stormwater being released into the creek during flood conditions.
The new treatment facility is to be built near Outfall 200 on Y-12’s southeast side. That’s the area where Y-12’s storm sewer lines converge and empty into the upper end of East Fork. The treatment system is intended to remove mercury from the water before it is released into the creek. The East Fork has been posted as a health hazard for more than three decades.
DOE has released its proposed plan for the project and is accepting public comment through Sept. 18.
A public information session will be held from 5:30 p.m.-7 p.m. on Sept. 2 at the DOE Information Center in Oak Ridge. Another meeting will take place a week later under the auspices of DOE’s Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board; Jason Darby, the project manager for DOE, will be among the speakers.
Y-12 in Rent Dispute Over Record Storage Site
A dispute over rent payments has drawn rare attention to a fortress-like hilltop storage facility that houses classified documents for the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.
Nat Revis, an Oak Ridge businessman who owns the 36,000-square-foot Off-Site Record Storage Facility, claims Consolidated Nuclear Security – the government’s managing contractor at the Tennessee facility – has significantly reduced its monthly rent payments, which threatens the operational health of the facility and could force him into bankruptcy.
According to Revis, CNS in May cut the monthly payments from about $54,000 to roughly $35,000. He claims the rent reduction is unfair and violates verbal commitments he received.
However, CNS said it is simply following the terms of the lease and does not plan to pay any more. Spokesman Jason Bohne said the company is “constrained” by terms of the lease. “We can’t pay more,” he said, “we can’t pay less.” He said CNS is unaware of any verbal agreements.
Revis said he built the Off-Site Record Storage Facility to the Department of Energy’s specifications in 2004. The cost was about $2 million, he said.
Revis, the founder of Scientific and Technical Resources, said he took every step to help DOE meet storage needs for classified nuclear documents at the secure site known as The Summit.
According to Revis, the reduced payments aren’t enough to pay the mortgage. He said he could be forced out of business within a couple months.
Bohne said CNS has contingency plans no matter what happens at the Oak Ridge storage facility, but he wasn’t specific. He said the Y-12 contractor has several employees who work at the storage complex, which is a couple miles from the main plant.
Revis suggested the crux of the dispute was whether CNS – the sole tenant at the facility – should pay for use of the entire facility rather than just the space it occupies for data storage.
Bohne said when the original 10-year lease was signed, the rent included the cost of improvements that needed to be made at the document storage facility, with terms for the rent to be reduced in the option years. “The cost of those were paid for over the 10 years,” he said.
Revis said he had received verbal commitments from B&W Y-12, the former contractor at Y-12, as well as CNS, to maintain the higher payments to cover operational costs, maintenance, and upgrades. He said he was only seeking the fair market value.
Revis said he has been unable to sell the facility because the rent payments reportedly wouldn’t pay for the upkeep.
CNS said it had tried to resolve the dispute with Revis.
“Various levels of CNS management have met with Dr. Revis in an attempt to fully understand his concerns and personal interpretation of the lease,” Bohne said. “In addition, CNS procurement conducted a thorough review of the entire lease file and has concluded there is no contractual basis to pay any amount other than that specified in the lease.”
Y-12 Advances Plans for Uranium Complex Calciner
Y-12 contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security is moving forward on plans to install a calciner system in the 9212 uranium processing complex to help get rid of “low-equity” enriched uranium there and prepare for getting out of the World War II-era facility – a decades-long mainstay of the nuclear weapons operation in Oak Ridge — and eventually its demolition.
The calciner is a rotating kiln capable of converting uranium-bearing solutions – including such things as mop water from the uranium processing areas – to an oxide form for storage elsewhere at the plant. Installing the furnace at 9212 will reportedly help reduce the inventory of enriched uranium there and prepare for removing uranium materials and pave the way for halting use of the facility.
The goal at Y-12 is to be done with the 9212 complex by 2025, when the Uranium Processing Facility is supposed to come online.
A July 17 weekly report by staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board noted that the NNSA approved Critical Decision-1 for the calciner project earlier this summer, providing a cost range of $36.5 million to $46.4 million.
“Once the calciner is operational in Building 9212 and the planned electrorefining system (a uranium metal purification technology) is operational in Building 9215, CNS plans to initiate the shutdown of the hazardous process equipment that currently provides 9212’s enriched uranium purification capability,” the DNFSB memo stated.
The same report also said the NNSA’s Production Office has approved a safety design strategy for the calciner project, That strategy reportedly identified six “safety significant controls” to “prevent or mitigate the release of radiological or toxicological hazards for the calciner system.”
Some key items are intended to keep the uranium systems from overpressurizing in a way that could lead to an explosion.
The calciner at 9212 is expected to come online in 2020 at Oak Ridge, where billions of dollars are being provided for modernization and enhanced safety of nuclear operations.
CNS spokeswoman Ellen Boatner indicated by email the calciner plans support the company’s intention to finish with 9212 as soon as possible, with new systems designed for UPF by 2025.
“Our plan is to cease programmatic EU (enriched uranium) operations in 9212 when UPF capabilities come online,” Boatner said. “While most production equipment will shut down then, the Calciner and other low-equity salvage processing equipment will be needed as 9212 goes through several years of post-operational cleanout to remove EU materials held up in processing and facility equipment to prepare the building for decommissioning and ultimately for demolition.”
Boatner said the designed life span of the calciner project is about 20 years. Combined with the electrorefining operations next door in Building 9215, the calciner will help set the stage for shutdown of all the uranium purification processes and oxide reduction processes in 9212, Boatner said. That includes a “majority” of wet chemistry operations, she said, which include some of the highest-risk operations at Y-12.
Oak Ridge Counterintel Officer Placed on Leave After Son-In-Law Dies
A spokesman at Oak Ridge National Laboratory confirmed that Thomas Martens, a counterintelligence officer at the Department of Energy site, has been placed on paid administrative leave while authorities investigate Martens’ involvement in the Aug. 2 death of his son-in-law.
David Keim, the lab’s communications director, said Martens remains on leave “while this investigation continues.”
According to an incident report by the Davidson County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Office, Martens called 911 following the incident and reportedly acknowledged hitting 39-year-old Jason Corbett with a baseball bat. According to reports, emergency responders pronounced Corbett dead at the scene.
No charges have been filed, and authorities said they are continuing the investigation and waiting on the results from an autopsy.
Martens, a former FBI agent, has worked in the Oak Ridge Office of Counterintelligence for the past eight years. Contacted at his Knoxville home, he referred calls to his North Carolina attorney, David Freedman.
Freedman confirmed that Martens made the 911 call on Aug. 2, and he did not dispute the information in the incident report. However, Freedman said he could not discuss details of what happened at the house in Wallburg, N.C., because of the ongoing investigation.
The attorney said Martens had cooperated fully with law enforcement authorities in North Carolina and provided a complete statement. Freedman said Martens also has volunteered to be available for any follow-up interviews with investigators.
Mikol Ward, administrative assistant at the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, said after all information is available the sheriff will meet with the district attorney and decide whether to take the case to a grand jury.
