Department of Energy contractor CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) has removed virtually all the waste generated from demolition of the vitrification plant at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state.
About 460 containers of debris have been sent from the site at the town of Ashford to off-site facilities, the Energy Department said Tuesday. The waste shipped included material such as concrete, steel liner, I-Beams, shield windows, and equipment.
Waste from components inside the plant were sent to a former Alaron site in Pennsylvania operated by Veolia. The facility then transports the West Valley waste in gondolas to a federally approved disposal site.
Now owned by the state of New York, West Valley was once home to the nation’s only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, which was run by Nuclear Fuel Services. Legislation passed by Congress in 1980 made the Energy Department responsible for remediation of the site, and footing about 90 percent of the costs.
West Valley occupies about 200 acres within the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. Between 1996 and 2002, the vitrification plant converted roughly 600,000 gallons of liquid high-level waste and sludge left by reprocessing into a glass-like substance inside 275 stainless steel canisters. The containers are now held on an interim storage pad at the site.
CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley started work in August 2011 on its $544 million contract for Phase 1 decommissioning. The work includes tearing down structures and removing the resulting waste. The deal expires in March 2020; last October, DOE issued a request for information as part of market research for a future Phase 1B environmental remediation solicitation.
A draft request for proposals could come as early as April, the Energy Department has indicated. The new contract will include demolition of the Main Plant Process Building, operated from 1966 to 1972 as a commercial reprocessing plant to recover reusable plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear fuel. The current vendor is finishing its deactivation.
