No more Savannah River Site facilities operated by contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) are under the operational safety pause the company initiated on Sept. 11. In addition, SRNS has phased several Savannah River Site (SRS) facilities out of a deliberate operations mode, according to company spokeswoman Barbara Smoak.
The last facilities to exit the safety pause were H Canyon, the site’s nuclear materials processing facility, and HB Line, which sits on top of H Canyon and feeds materials to the canyon. H Canyon exited the safety pause near the end of October, and SRS reported Monday that HB Line had officially exited the pause. The pause began in September after a plutonium sample headed to the Savannah River National Laboratory was improperly stored in a container that was not fit for transport. The incident, among others cited by SRNS President Carol Johnson, led the contractor to self-induce a pause on all nonessential work handled by the contractor.
Little by little, SRNS operations have exited the pause and gone into deliberate operations – a phase in which workers pay extra attention to detail and planning. SRS reported Monday that H Canyon and HB Line are expected to exit deliberate operations by the end of January 2016. Other facilities that have exited deliberate operations include the national lab and a number of SRNS operations under the scope of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Several other facilities responsible for the storage of plutonium and spent fuel are expected to exit deliberate operations by the end of the year. "SRNS employees accomplish many difficult tasks each day, safely and with great discipline," Smoak said. "Even so, we believe that instituting this operational pause was the right thing to do and will make us a stronger operation going forward."
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