The Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office has now taken down nine of the 10 contaminated structures covered by an agreement reached earlier this year on facilities at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California, officials said Wednesday.
Demolition of the ninth of the buildings in the current tranche at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) was just completed this week, said Elizabeth Connell, who oversees regulatory and policy affairs at the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
Connell noted the milestone during the online National Cleanup Workshop, sponsored by the Energy Communities Alliance, in conjunction with the Energy Facilities Contractors Group and the Energy Department.
The deteriorating buildings within the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility Complex at ETEC are being taken down under an agreement inked this spring with the California Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.
The Energy Department faced pressure to get the buildings down to reduce the chance of contaminants being spread through the air in the event of another wildfire in the area.
The 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory complex is 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles. From the 1950s until the 1980s, DOE and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, used about 472 acres at the property for work on nuclear power and liquid metal technology. NASA and Boeing are the other responsible parties for cleaning up the rest of the site.
The demolition is occurring at warp speed, although it should be noted that a couple of structures amount to little more than “a shed,” DOE Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Todd Shrader said at last week’s RadWaste Summit, sponsored by the ExchangeMonitor.
The structures were built at ETEC 60 years ago to handle nuclear fuel, and are contaminated with radionuclides, heavy metals, solvents, oils, asbestos, and greases. Demolition to slab and removal of the debris will be completed this year. There are a handful of ETEC buildings not covered by the current agreement.
The DOE last month issued a request for information/sources sought on the next round of environmental remediation at the site in Ventura County. The current contract is held by North Wind Group and dates to August 2014. The agreement is worth $36.4 million and expires Sept. 30, 2021.
