Substantial demolition of the Main Plant Process Building at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state is winding down, the top manager for a Department of Energy contractor told the West Valley Citizen Task Force meeting Tuesday.
Jason Casper, president of the current contractor, CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley, said workers are wrapping up the deconstruction of dozens of facilities at the Main Plant Process Building. The contractor started tearing down the building in September 2022.
Facilities being remediated include rooms designed for chemical storage, waste receipt, decontamination, and other functions at the main building, Casper said.
The last structure to be torn down is the Product Purification Cell, a part of the main building that was once highly contaminated and used during former nuclear fuel reprocessing operations. “There are 56 areas inside the facility that we identified to be demolished.,” Casper said. “Of those 56 locations, we’re down to the very last one, which is the Product Purification Cell.”
To date, decommissioning and demolition efforts at the 150-acre area have produced 215 rail cars of building debris, which tallies about 25,115 tons. Another 805 tons of contaminated frames, piping and other items have been packaged in specialty boxes for offsite shipping.
Other efforts during this phase include removing and shipping waste pumps from the waste tank farm. Casper said three pumps were removed between October and December of last year, and another two were removed this week. A sixth one will be removed from the tank farms next week. “Everyone sees the demolition, but the waste portion is also a big task,” he said.
A copy of Casper’s briefing to the Task Force is available online.
The project, located 35 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., is owned by New York state and was home to a private nuclear fuel processing plant between 1963 and 1972.
Jacobs-led CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley will turn over control of the nuclear cleanup site around June 23 to BWX Technologies-led West Valley Cleanup Alliance. BWXT is currently a junior partner to Jacobs, which merged its government contracting business with Amentum last year. Amentum is a partner in the new contractor group, which started transition Feb. 24.
West Valley Cleanup Alliance won the new contract, potentially worth $3 billion over 15 years, in October 2024. The new contractor is keeping Casper in place as the top executive.
