Schedule Recovery Expected
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
5/1/2015
While remote-handled transuranic waste processing at the Department of Energy’s Idaho site ran into delays late last year, including a worker contamination incident and a system blockage, site officials still hope to complete processing of the waste on schedule by the end of 2015. The contamination incident occurred as a result of a ventilation system issue in October 2014 at the New Waste Calcining Facility, which is used to process remote-handled transuranic waste. A worker removed a cell port cover to take out waste, which increased ventilation flow, causing contamination to spread within the building’s corridors. One worker “received a low level of detectable internal radioactive contamination,” according to a recently released April 8 DOE Idaho Operations Office presentation. DOE did not take any actions to reduce fee for contractor CH2M-WG, Idaho, LLC, as a result of the incident, according to DOE Idaho Operations Office spokesman Danielle Miller.
The repackaging schedule for remote-handled transuranic waste was delayed by seven weeks while decontamination efforts took place, the DOE presentation states. The cause of the event was traced to the operator not adequately preparing the ventilation system for removal of the cell port cover. DOE and the contractor have since implemented a number of corrective actions, including revising technical procedures, training operations workers and evaluating aspects of the ventilation system, according to the presentation.
As of March, only 1 cubic meter of waste had been treated in FY’15 out of the 4.17 cubic meters planned for treatment this year, while 25 cubic meters total must be treated under the Idaho Settlement Agreement, according to a DOE presentation.
Sodium Distillation System Still Down After Blockage
Meanwhile, the sodium distillation system at the same facility remains down after a blockage that occurred late last year, DOE Idaho Cleanup Project Deputy Manager Jack Zimmerman told WC Monitor in April at a Congressional Nuclear Cleanup Caucus Briefing. DOE is taking steps to maintain the schedule while the system is down. “We are segregating the waste to try and minimize the amount that has to go through the sodium distillation system. So getting it down to just a very small quantity that goes through sodium distillation, while the larger quantity can be treated inside of a hot cell,” Zimmerman said.
Waste Segregation Expected to Allow Schedule Recovery
Only about 30 percent of the waste volume must go through the sodium distillation system, and the rest can be sprayed with water to treat the sodium, Zimmerman said. Before, all of the remote-handled waste had been expected to go through the distillation process. “A lot of it is surface contaminated, so they can use this water spritz to react with. So that is basically, it is how we are recovering schedule from the blockage,” he said. “Right now, that’s the main reason we’ll still complete it on schedule, the segregation.”
The blockage was not cleared, but the site plans to soon replace the blocked section. “They weren’t able to clear the blockage, so we made it so that the components are easily swapped in and out so that the workers’ safety and exposure is significantly reduced that way. We anticipate it may block again, and we will just address it through this manner,” Zimmerman said.