The Department of Energy is taking steps to catch up lost time on demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant after an unusually cold and snowy winter delayed work by several weeks.
As of Tuesday, the demolition project had lost the equivalent of 23 10-hour days this winter, or more than a month of work total, due to bad weather, Tom Teynor, DOE project director, said at a Hanford Advisory Board subcommittee meeting. The next day work was delayed again by freezing rain.
Icy conditions and snow-covered roads and work sites have closed the site repeatedly this winter, as well as shortening work days. In addition, demolition must be stopped at the Plutonium Finishing Plant when the temperature drops to 20 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent water from turning to snow as it is sprayed to help prevent airborne contamination.
The plant was used in the Cold War to produce plutonium “button” for insertion into nuclear weapons. DOE faces a Tri-Party Agreement milestone to have the plant down to slab on grade by the end of September, a yearlong extension granted last summer.
To gain schedule back, an extra shift of workers will process waste from the demolition project as days lengthen in the spring and summer. In addition, another heavy equipment operator will be brought on to demolish part of the plant that is mostly offices while other heavy equipment operations continue open-air demolition at the end of the plant that includes two add-ons: the Plutonium Reclamation Facility and the McCluskey Room. Demolition of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility began on Nov. 1, followed by work on the McCluskey Room about two months later.
Hanford crews were preparing to restart demolition this week of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility after a radioactive contamination spread stopped work on Jan. 27. Demolition had yet to resume on the facility earlier this week, largely because of weather issues, Teynor said. In addition to other weather issues, snow on the ground slowed cleanup of the contamination spread. The contamination did not spread beyond the fence line of the Plutonium Finishing Plant and workers did not have skin or internal contamination, according to Hanford officials.
Early in the week, workers still needed to package debris involved in the contamination spread into containers, the final step before restarting demolition. The contamination spread is believed to be related to use of a front loader to push demolition debris lying on the ground into a pile. The source of the contamination within the pile has yet to be identified. As a precaution, the debris will be loaded into containers in small quantities and fixative will be used as it is moved and packaged. Special packaging requirements planned for use on high-risk items from the plant will be expanded to the debris pile involved in the incident.
The contamination spread was an anticipated event that workers had trained for and handled correctly, Teynor said.
The first part of the Plutonium Finishing Plant that should be demolished to slab on grade is the McCluskey Room, which connects the Plutonium Reclamation Facility to the main part of the plant. Once anticipated to be down in early February, now the McCluskey Room is expected to be demolished in March. During weather delays, crews have been assigned to assist work still being done inside the main portion of the plant to prepare for its demolition. Recent work has included removing the process vacuum lines used to move radioactive material among glove boxes. An additional 20 workers have been hired to remove asbestos after worse conditions than anticipated were found in part of the plant. The asbestos has sweated and adhered to the walls, Teynor said.
