Wash. Closure Completes Demolition of Last Reactor Support Facility
WC Monitor
7/11/2014
Washington Closure Hanford has demolished the last obsolete reactor support facility around the seven reactors under its contract as it works to finish most Columbia River Corridor cleanup in 2015. It recently completed demolition of the final facility, the 183-B Clearwell, one of Hanford’s oldest structures. It was built in 1943 to hold filtered cooling water for use at Hanford’s B Reactor, the world’s first production-scale reactor. “This work shows the enormous progress made at Hanford reactor areas,” said Doug Shoop, acting manager of the Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office.
Some reactor areas had more than 100 facilities, said Cameron Hardy, DOE spokesman. Today only a few buildings remain near the former B, C, N, D, DR, H and F reactors, including some temporary offices and groundwater pump and treat systems. Six of the reactors have been cocooned, with B Reactor left as a museum. About 15 support structures and seven major structures still stand near the K East and K West Reactors, which are under the CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. contract. Final work cannot be done there until sludge is removed from underwater storage in the K West Reactor’s basin.
Project Was ‘A Fun Job’
Scott Sax, president of Washington Closure, told workers to finish building demolition work strong, and they did, said Mike Douglas, who was Washington Closure’s D4 manager for reactor areas. The clearwell demolition “was a fun job to finish the project up with,” he said. And work was completed ahead of schedule. The above-ground structures at the clearwell, including the filter building, were demolished in the 1980s. But two 5 million-gallon, reinforced-concrete reservoirs with covers were left in place. The plan may have been to use them as needed for demolition debris in an era before the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility was built.
Before Washington Closure could tear the clearwell out, the underground structure was checked to make sure it was not being used as a bat habitat. Another Hanford clearwell, the one once used for F Reactor, has been saved because it is home to a maternity colony of Yuma bats from mid-March to mid-October. The colony, which originally had about 2,000 bats, has continued to grow and now numbers about 6,000 bats, according to DOE. But the B Reactor clearwell was largely empty, containing neither disposed debris nor a bat colony.
Because clearwells were used to hold water before it went into the reactors, the water had no radiological contamination. However, the B Reactor clearwell, which covered an area roughly three football fields long and two wide, did have some asbestos in the joints of the ground-level roof. It could not be removed before demolition, because the roof was unsafe to send workers onto, Douglas said.
Some Work Continues Around Former Reactors
Washington Closure is continuing some cleanup work around reactors, including digging up some remaining waste sites, backfilling soil and planting vegetation on disturbed areas. It also is doing some additional demolition work at the 300 Area just north of Richland along the Columbia River, where reactor fuel was fabricated and research conducted.
Washington Closure had finished tearing down all the remaining buildings under its contract in the 300 Area earlier this year, but then work to tear down the 300 Area Treated Effluent Disposal Facility and a power substation were added to its contract. Several other buildings remain standing there, including a few used by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Mission Support Alliance. The 324 Building also is still standing because more time is needed to address a highly radioactive waste spill beneath it. Washington Closure has torn down 301 facilities, with additional buildings torn down near the Columbia River by other contractors.
