# Presentation: 946594

## Plum Brook Reactor FacilityDecommissioningCommunity Work Group #36

- March 3, 2009

## Project Update

- Update on the progress of:
- Decontamination and FSS Preparations
- FSS
- Waste Shipping
- NRC License Amendment for Offsite Contamination Clean Up levels
- Look ahead to soil work

## Decontamination and FSS Preparations

- The Clauss team has been extremely successful.  Their  innovative thinking has already resulted in significant savings to the project
- Removal of the D-10 door
- Volume  minimization for waste disposal
- The focus of efforts through the winter has been to ‘free up’ interior real estate for FSS
- Complete decontamination efforts in the ‘almost ready’ buildings
- Complete physical preparation of surfaces for FSS

## Hot Lab - D-10 Door

- This 80,000 lb door separated the Warm Handling Room from the Hot Handling Room
- It consisted of a thin steel shell that had been filled with molten lead
- The weight of the door was  beyond any installed crane capacity
- Original plan was to cut it up for recycling
- Significant cost, engineering controls effort, and potential industrial health risk to workers
- Clauss developed and successfully implemented an approach where the door was removed in one piece and sent whole, at no cost, to a local metal recycler

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## Floor Slab Removal

- Floor slabs are being removed in several areas due to volumetric contamination concerns
- Translation – core bores found contamination in cracks in the concrete that did not always show up as surface contamination
- Areas involved were
- Hot Pipe Tunnel (done)
- Primary Pump House Room #3 (done)
- Waste Handling Building, Evaporator Pit (ongoing)
- Hot Dry Storage Vault (ongoing)

## Hot Pipe Tunnel

- Remediation of the 240’ long tunnel took place last year, using the Brokk to remove from 1” to 7” of the 12” thick floor
- Post remediation surveys showed that, in one 80’ section, the remaining 5” of concrete also needed to be removed
- Concrete has been removed, soil is being sampled
- Any contaminated soil will be removed to meet DCGLs
- New concrete will be poured to prevent intrusion of ground water

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## Primary Pump House Room #3

- This grade level floor did not present ground water challenges, but it was in a place of very limited access.
- Since area involved was not large the solution was to cut the concrete into blocks, then attach cables to them and lift them out through the overhead equipment hatch.

## Hot Dry Storage Vault

- This floor presented two challenges
- Its depth (25’ below grade)
- Its thickness (5’)
- Core bores were used to determine exact removal requirements
- 1/3  of the 500 sq ft floor removed to 1’
- Spot removal over rest of floor to 5”

## Slide 14

## Other Decon and FSS Prep Work

- Completed Decon and FSS preparations in:
- Hot Cell Viewing Gallery
- Cooling Tower Basin
- Former Hot Cell change out room
- Fan House basement
- Hot Retention Vault
- Primary Pump House – Rooms #7 and #8
- Continued Decon and FSS preparations in:
- Reactor Building
- Quads and Canals (including asbestos abatement)
- Waste Handling Building
- Primary Pump House – Room #1 to #6

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## FSS Status

- Since our last meeting Final Status Survey field work has been completed in:
- Fan House
- Hot Cell Viewing Gallery
- Former Hot Lab dress out area
- FSS field work is currently ongoing in:
- Primary Pump House Room #7 and #8
- Will perform FSS under floor slabs now that removal is complete
- FSS personnel are putting together the formal NRC submittal of FSS results for the Reactor Office Laboratory Building.  This will be our first submittal for a full building

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## Waste Shipping Status

- Clauss shipped 127,000 lbs of LLRW in December and January, all legacy waste.
- Most impressive was that the original volume of the waste was 14,000 ft3.  Through drying out wet waste, more efficient packing of dry activated waste, and consolidating waste stored in drums Clauss was able to reduce over two-thirds of this volume to 4,100 ft3.
- This was a real cost savings to the project, since waste disposal rates are based on volume
- Clauss continues with its efforts to minimize waste, working to free release material whenever it makes sense
- Example – crane components

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## Plum Brook Remediation Standards

- At the last CWG meeting NASA shared the results of dose analysis based on several scenarios for people living, working, and playing along Plum Brook.
- NASA has submitted a license amendment to the NRC that establishes that the potential dose to the public is below safe limits.
- NASA expects to conduct spot decontamination in Plum Brook to meet ALARA, currently set for the summer of 2010.

## Look Ahead to Soil Work

- The big push for the  next several months will be soil work.  The goal is to have all potentially contaminated soil excavated and surveyed by the end of the dig season – November 1, 2009.
- We will know for certain how  much soil needs to be disposed of offsite.
- Soil will come from several areas
- Pentolite Ditch and the south bank areas
- Storm Drains (approximately 6,200’)
- Underground Storage Tanks (8 HRA tanks, 2 CRA tanks)
- Several hundred feet of known buried piping that is above the DCGL.
- Emergency Retention Basin dike

## Look Ahead to Soil Work (cont)

- Current estimate is that 100 million pounds of soil will be excavated and assayed, and that 10% of that will require offsite disposal.
- Planned approach is to use blending of soil to permit disposal of soil under the Volumetrically Contaminated Debris (VCD) in Tennessee.
- Soil which cannot be blended to meet the VCD standards will be sent to Energy Solutions in Utah.

## Nominal Soil Flow Pathways

**Soil and Debris Excavation/Segregation/Waste Management Plan**
**January 15, 2009**
- The PBRF Decommissioning Project SOW requires the use of a proven, commercially available method that satisfies FSS requirements, to assay and segregate in excess of 50 million pounds of soil into material that can either stay on site for use as back fill (less than 1⁄2 DCGL for Cesium-137 in soil) or that must be shipped offsite for disposal. Clauss/SEC project a volume of approximately 83 million pounds of soil will be excavated from impacted areas of the site and segregated. In addition to the soil, debris will be excavated and stockpiled separately. The following plan summarizes the planned approach to excavate, segregate and disposition waste.
- _Pre-Segregation Activities_
- The following activities will be completed prior to beginning the soil and debris excavation/segregation/waste disposition (segregation) phase of the project.
- A1.		Develop a Flow Diagram – Establish Site Traffic Patterns
- Refer to figure below
- A2.		Contract with MACTEC for Segregation System
- A Lombardo has contted Jeff Lively (MACTEC point of contact going forward) and will give Jeff updated specification and dates to bid on.
- A3.		Start Up Onsite Truck Monitoring Station
- A4.		Survey and Release Site Segregation and Stockpiles Site Footprint
- The targeted areas are Class 2 and 3 with low potential for residual contamination. Consider waiting till completion of work to final survey. Should complete 100% walk-over pre-FSS survey prior to constructing areas.
- A5.		Build Segregation and Stockpile Area
- A6.		Transportation Contract(s)
- A7.		Disposal Contract(s)
- SEC has initiated contract with Impact Services in Oak Ridge TN.
- A8.		Work Package and Procedure Development
- A9.		Train Truck Drivers
- A10.	Water Management Plans and Permits
- A11.	Utilities/Scales/MISC Infrastructure
- A12.	Schedule
- Needs to include the sequence of areas to be excavated, landfarming of material, segregation of material, load out and transportation/disposal.
- A13.	Measurement Benchmark Study
- The soil segregation gamma spectroscopy system, the Impact portable gamma spec system, the SEC portable gamma spec system, the onsite lab gamma spec system and the offsite (QC) lab gamma spec system will all be used to analyze material during a 3-day onsite study. The results will be used to identify any bias between the results from any of these soil assay techniques prior to beginning the soil phase of the project.
- Impact has submitted a proposal to support 3-days of onsite testing of their portable gamma spec system.
- A Lombardo and L Young will develop a sample and analysis plan for the 3-day testing of all of the assay systems.
- _Segregation Activities_
- The following activities will comprise the segregation phase of the project.
- B1.		Pre-Screen (Radiological) Excavation Areas
- B2.		Implement Water Management in Excavation Area
- B3.		Excavate Soil/Transport to Segregation Area
- B4.		Stockpile/Land Farm Soil (< 20% moisture)
- B5.		Segregate Debris
- B6.		Characterize Debris
- B7.		Soil Segregation System Operation
- B8.		Stockpile for Waste Disposition
- B9.		Stockpile Maintenance
- _Waste Management/Transportation and Disposal_
- The following activities will comprise waste disposition.
- C1.		Survey Incoming Trucks
- C2.		Recipe for Blending Trucks
- C3.		Load Trucks (Soil and/or Debris)
- C4.		Release for Transportation Survey of Trucks
- C5.		Manifesting
- C6.		Release of Trucks at Impact prior to Return to Site
- Can we stage a Knoxville HPT to release trucks/containers at Chestnut Ridge each day (10 per day) to eliminate the incoming survey on the PBRF site?

## Soil Work Preparation

- Preliminary work has already started
- Lay down area for clean soil was established in the area south of the reactor project trailers
- Silt fencing installed
- Soil that is shown to be below 1⁄2 the DCGL (6 pCi/gm of Cs-137 in soil) will be stockpiled here for eventual use as backfill during site restoration.
- Planned schedule is:
- Begin excavation in April, based on weather
- Mobilize ‘Shonka’ to site by July 1
- Complete assaying, demobilize ‘Shonka’ by Nov 1
- Perform shipping of contaminated soil beginning in August

## Slide 31

## Questions?