The overwhelming number of excess facilities awaiting cleanup at Department of Energy facilities has been identified as one of the agency’s biggest challenges and concerns, and DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management is using $28 million – a special fund enabled by a congressional plus-up for fiscal 2016 – to reduce risks and stabilize the situation at some of the worst sites at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex.
The idea is to keep things from getting out of control until funding becomes available to tear down these old facilities, some of which date back to the World War II Manhattan Project.
In a telephone interview, Oak Ridge cleanup chief Sue Cange described some of the projects being planned. She said some of the proposed activities will be conditional based on the cost and progress of the early work.
Among the projects planned at Y-12 is work at Alpha-4, a huge building that was originally part of the plant’s early uranium enrichment work and then transitioned during the Cold War to a lithium separation program to support the development of hydrogen bombs. That work required vast amounts of mercury, and the spills and discharges of mercury in the 1950s are a continuing legacy that DOE will be dealing with for decades to come.
“The roof is deteriorating, and we have some water intrusion,” Cange said, noting that the water can affect the structural integrity of the building itself. That is a concern, she said.
The upcoming project will evaluate the condition of some of the COLEX equipment located outside the Alpha-4 building. COLEX was one of the processes used for lithium separation during the H-bomb work at Y-12.
If there is sufficient funding after characterization of the site, DOE may remove and dispose of the exterior equipment, Cange said. “I will say we’re concerned with the structural integrity of the equipment,” she said.
Although there is COLEX equipment inside and outside of Alpha-5, only the outdoor equipment is part of the upcoming project, the DOE official said.
DOE’s cleanup contractor, URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), is handling most work on excess facilities. On the Alpha-4 roof repairs, however, the agency will share a subcontractor already hired for roof work at two other buildings – Alpha-5 and Beta-4.
DOE spokesman Ben Williams said the Alpha-4 roof work will be done under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Roof Asset Management Program through the Kansas City Site Office.
“The current contractor for this program is Technical Assurance,” Williams said.
Other plans at Y-12 include evaluations of the old “Mouse House” and seven other buildings that were once part of the biology research complex at the Oak Ridge complex. Those evaluations will set the stage for future demolitions at the site.
Cange said DOE would like to tear down some of the smaller buildings in the biology complex later this year if there’s enough money.
One of the focal points at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be the 1950s-era Homogeneous Reactor Experiment, which is looking its age and spreading contamination.
“There’s quite a bit of water in the basement of that building, and the building is leaking,” Cange said. “Interestingly enough, the primary contamination is asbestos, and some radiological constituents.”
The EM team also wants to make some additional progress on ORNL’s large number of old “hot cells.” One of those facilities scheduled for work is Building 3026, where some hot cells were removed a few years ago during an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project that ran out of money before the job was completed.
Cange said DOE plans to address an underground tunnel once used to transport materials by filling it with grout to prevent the further spread of radioactive pollutants.
She said the excess buildings project at ORNL will also include a couple of old buildings – 3028 and 3029 — on the lab’s “Isotope Row.”
“Those buildings have hot cells in them,” Cange said, adding that work may be done to fixate or encapsulate some of the radioactivity to keep it from spreading.
Another target at ORNL is Building 3038, where some cleanup work was done earlier with ARRA funds. Upcoming tasks will attempt to reduce its nuclear category to a Less-Than-Hazard-3 Category, thus minimizing risks and the costs of ongoing maintenance.
“What that means is we’re going to remove or empty some of the glove boxes . . . and potentially remove some of the HEPA filter houses,” she said.
