Envirocare's Containerized Waste Facility (CWF) is the first commercial low-level radioactive waste disposal facility to be licensed in the 21st century and the first new site to be opened and operated since the late 1970's. The licensing of this facility has been the culmination of over a decade's effort by Envirocare of Utah at their Clive, Utah site. With the authorization to receive and dispose of higher activity containerized Class A low-level radioactive waste (LLRW), this facility has provided critical access to disposal for the nuclear power industry, as well as the related research and medical communities. This paper chronicles the licensing history and operational efforts designed to address the disposal of containerized LLRW in accordance with state and federal regulations.

The deactivation and decommissioning of radiologically contaminated facilities require the use of a multitude of technologies to perform characterization, decontamination, dismantlement, and waste management. Current baseline technologies do not provide adequate tools to perform this work in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Examples of such tasks that can be modified to enhance the D&D work include: floor and wall decontamination, pipe decontamination, and surveillance and monitoring. FIU-HCET's Technology Development, Integration and Deployment (TDID) group aims to enhance the D&D process by integrating sensor technology to existing decontamination and remote surveillance tools. These integrated systems have been demonstrated throughout the DOE Complex and commercial nuclear facilities undergoing decommissioning. Finding new ways of integrating technologies utilized in the decommissioning and surveillance & monitoring process has been a goal of this group during the past several years. Current and previous integration projects include: Mobile Integrated Piping Decontamination and Characterization System, On-Line Decontamination and Characterization System, In-Situ Pipe Decontamination and Unplugging System, Remote Hazardous Environment Surveyor (RHES), and the Online Handheld grit blasting decontamination system As a result of integrating sensors with D&D tools, the resulting technologies have removed the downtime currently found in baseline processes by allowing operators and project managers to have …

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) is operated by Bechtel-BWXT Idaho LLC (BBWI), which recently completed a very successful Three-Mile Island-2 (TMI-2) program for the Department of Energy. This complex and challenging program loaded, welded, and transported an unprecedented 27 dry shielded canisters in seven-months, and did so ahead of schedule. The program moved over 340 canisters of TMI-2 core debris that had been in wet storage into a dry storage facility at the INEEL. Welding flaws with the manually welded purge and vent ports discovered in mid-campaign had to be verified as not effecting previous completed seal welds. A portable workmanship coupon was designed and built to validate remote inspection of completed in-service seal welds. This document outlines the methodology and advantages for building and using workmanship coupons.

It is planned to dismantle the TRIGA reactor facility at the Medical University of Hannover (MHH). Radioactive waste resulting from this dismantling will be disposed of externally, any remaining materials as well as the building structures will then be measured to ensure there is no residual activity. In preparation for this and to plan the techniques which will be used to dismantle the reactor, calculations were made in order to determine the amount of activity and the dose rates for the reactor tank and its inside components as well as for the biological shield and its radial beam tube.

Requirements to the professional competence of the personnel engaged in the area of the radioactive waste management are increased. Higher school cannot supply the branch with the qualified personnel; therefore special attention should be given to the system of staff retraining and to the increase of their qualification. In that paper the analysis of SIA ''Radon'' experience on the organization and carrying out training at courses of qualification improvement is represented. The main criterion of the analysis is the research of an education efficiency. Also here the basic directions of the training process improving are submitted as well as the requirements that should be considered when forming the teaching staff and trainees groups.

Results from long-term field tests with borosilicate glass, cement and bitumen waste forms containing actual intermediate-level radioactive waste are summarized and discussed in the paper. Leaching behavior of the waste forms was evaluated by monitoring the contamination of contacting water. Measured leach rates of the three waste-form materials were in a narrow range in shallow subsurface repositories, but varied in a wide range at an open testing site owing to weathering of bitumen and cement materials. The repositories were opened after 12-year testing for visual examination, sampling and analysis. All retrieved waste forms were in good physical condition. The study has not revealed any negative changes in the waste glass. Some ageing processes were detected in cement and bitumen waste forms, which can positively (bitumen) or negatively (cement) affect physical and containment properties of these waste materials. It has been established that a significant proportion of the radioactive inventory in the bitumen waste form became associated with the bitumen phase. Phase separation of this radioactive bitumen has shown, than the asphaltene fraction is responsible for the major part of the radioactivity retained by the bitumen.

Clean-out of the F Reactor fuel storage basin (FSB) by the Environmental Restoration Contractor (ERC) is an element of the FSB decontamination and decommissioning and is required to complete interim safe storage (ISS) of the F Reactor. Following reactor shutdown and in preparation for a deactivation layaway action in 1970, the water level in the F Reactor FSB was reduced to approximately 0.6 m (2 ft) over the floor. Basin components and other miscellaneous items were left or placed in the FSB. The item placement was performed with a sense of finality, and no attempt was made to place the items in an orderly manner. The F Reactor FSB was then filled to grade level with 6 m (20 ft) of local surface material (essentially a fine sand). The reactor FSB backfill cleanout involves the potential removal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) that may have been left in the basin unintentionally. Based on previous cleanout of four water-filled FSBs with similar designs (i.e., the B, C, D, and DR FSBs in the 1980s), it was estimated that up to five SNF elements could be discovered in the F Reactor FSB (1). In reality, a total of 10 SNF elements have …

The Deactivation and Decommissioning Focus Area's (DDFA's) mission is to develop, demonstrate, and deploy improved deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) technologies. This mission requires that emphasis be continually placed on identifying technologies currently employed or under development in other nuclear as well as nonnuclear industries and government agencies. In support of DDFA efforts to clean up the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) radiologically contaminated surplus facilities using technologies that improve worker safety, reduce costs, and accelerate cleanup schedules, a study was conducted to identify innovative technologies developed for use in nonnuclear arenas that are appropriate for D&D applications.

The purpose of work is a laboratory test of a technological scheme for cleaning bottoms from radionuclides by use of ozonization, ferrocyanide precipitation, filtration and selective sorption. At carrying out the ferrocyanide precipitation after ozonization, the specific activity of bottoms by Cs{sup 137} is reduced in 100-500 times. It has been demonstrated that the efficiency of ferrocyanide precipitation depends on the quality of consequent filtration. Pore sizes of a filter has been determined to be less than 0.2 {micro}m for complete separation of ferrocyanide residue. The comparison of two technological schemes for cleaning bottoms from radionuclides, characterized by presence of the ferrocyanide precipitation stage has been performed. Application of the proposed schemes allows reducing volumes of radioactive waste in many times.

Envirocare of Utah, Inc. (Envirocare) has developed and constructed a test pad to evaluate potential infiltration through the designed cover system over the low-level radioactive waste disposal embankments incorporated at the facility. The general design of the test pad follows the recommendations set forth in the Alternative Cover Assessment Program (ACAP) that is currently funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assess potential alternatives to conventional landfill cover designs. The bulk of the test pad is below grade with dimensions approximately 16 feet wide by 28 feet long. The base of the test pad is a lysimeter built to the same dimensions as compliance lysimeters within the disposal embankments at Envirocare. The lysimeter collects all liquids to a single low point and directs the liquids through monitoring instruments within a manhole outside the test pad. The lysimeter is constructed to simulate the ''top of waste'' condition in Envirocare's embankments; consequently, the top of the lysimeter is sloped at an angle of approximately 2.8 percent, the design top slope of the embankment. A replica of the embankment cover is constructed directly above the lysimeter. This cover is constructed exactly the same as final cover is constructed upon the waste …

The Savannah River Site (SRS) along with other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites have thousands of drums of mixed transuranic (TRU) waste that are being stored awaiting transfer to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The SRS drums contain noncompliant items that must meet WIPP waste acceptance criteria (WAC) before being accepted. A system is being developed by the DOE Transuranic and Mixed Waste Focus Area (TMFA) under the Robotics Crosscut Program to repackage drummed, mixed TRU waste to meet WIPP WAC. This system, the Handling and Segregating System for 55-gallon drums (HANDSS-55), will economically and remotely open, sort, and segregate noncompliant components of the waste inside the drums and repackage the compliant components in a new drum suitable for shipment and acceptance by WIPP in New Mexico. HANDSS-55 is scheduled to be deployed for operation at the SRS Solid Waste Division by September 30, 2004. Other versions of HANDSS-55 may later be deployed at other DOE sites. MSE Technology Applications, Inc. (MSE) was selected to integrate and demonstrate the HANDSS-55 modules being developed by the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC). This paper reports progress on integration and testing to …

Synchrotron radiation-based Fourier transform infrared (SR-FTIR) spectromicroscopy is a newly emerging bioanalytical and imaging tool. This unique technique provides mid-infrared (IR) spectra, hence chemical information, with high signal-to-noise at spatial resolutions as fine as 3 to 10 microns. Thus it enables researchers to locate, identify, and track specific chemical events within an individual living mammalian cell. Mid-IR photons are too low in energy (0.05 - 0.5 eV) to either break bonds or to cause ionization. In this review, we show that the synchrotron IR beam has no detectable effects on the short- and long-term viability, reproductive integrity, cell-cycle progression, and mitochondrial metabolism in living human cells, and produces only minimal sample heating (< 0.5 degrees C). We will then present several examples demonstrating the application potentials of SR-FTIR spectromicroscopy in biomedical research. These will include monitoring living cells progressing through the cell cycle, including death, and cells reacting to dilute concentrations of toxins.

Soils contaminated with radionuclides are an environmental concern at most Department of Energy (DOE) sites. Clean up efforts at many of these sites are ongoing using conventional remediation techniques. These remediation techniques are often expensive and may not achieve desired soil volume reduction. Several studies using alternative remediation techniques have been performed on plutonium-contaminated soils from the Nevada Test Site. Results to date exhibit less than encouraging results, but these processes were often not fully optimized, and other approaches are possible. Clemson University and teaming partner Waste Policy Institute, through a cooperative agreement with the National Environmental Technologies Laboratory, are assisting the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in re-evaluating technologies that have the potential of reducing the volume of plutonium contaminated soil. This efforts includes (1) a through literature review and summary of (a) NTS soil characterization and (b) volume reduction treatment technologies applied to plutonium-contaminated NTS soils, (2) an interactive workshop for vendors, representatives from DOE sites and end-users, and (3) bench scale demonstration of applicable vendor technologies at the Clemson Environmental Technologies Laboratory.

The Waste Acceptance Criteria Forecasting and Analysis Capability System (WACFACS) is used to plan for, evaluate, and control the supply of approximately 1.8 million yd3 of low-level radioactive, TSCA, and RCRA hazardous wastes from over 60 environmental restoration projects between FY02 through FY10 to the Oak Ridge Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF). WACFACS is a validated decision support tool that propagates uncertainties inherent in site-related contaminant characterization data, disposition volumes during EMWMF operations, and project schedules to quantitatively determine the confidence that risk-based performance standards are met. Trade-offs in schedule, volumes of waste lots, and allowable concentrations of contaminants are performed to optimize project waste disposition, regulatory compliance, and disposal cell management.

The past five years have witnessed a remarkable transition in the pace and scope of waste management activities at SRS. At the start of the new M&O contract in 1996, little was being done with the waste generated at the site apart from storing it in readiness for future treatment and disposal. Large volumes of legacy waste, particularly TRU and Low Level Waste, had accumulated over many years of operation of the site's nuclear facilities, and the backlog was increasing. WSRC proposed the use of the talents of the ''best in class'' partners for the new contract which, together with a more commercial approach, was expected to deliver more results without a concomitant increase in cost. This paper charts the successes in the Solid Waste arena and analyzes the basis for success.

The COGEMA UP1 reprocessing plant commissioned at Marcoule, France in 1958 handled roughly 20,000 metric tons of fuel from gas-cooled and research reactors. The commercial reprocessing activities of the UP1 plant ended in December 1997. CODEM , a joint venture created by the former users of the UP1 plant, including the utility Electricite de France (EDF), the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and COGEMA, was established to fund and supervise decommissioning of the plant. COGEMA was selected as the industrial operator of the decommissioning project, which is scheduled to span a period of about 40 years. COGEMA, with its CODEM partners, had made the decision to proceed to a ''Final Shutdown'' of the plant within a few years after the end of commercial operation. Final shutdown is intended to remove remaining fissile matter and highly radioactive materials, as well as some equipment, from the plant to ease the plant monitoring requirements compared with those applied when the plant was in operation. A two-step approach has been devised, including first the rinsing of the equipment with selected reagents in order to decrease the radiation exposure rate and contamination risk enough to allow further mechanical decontamination operations, such as high-pressure water scrubbing …

In 2000, Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC (BJC) contracted Tetra Tech NUS, Inc. (TtNUS) and their sub-contractor, Texas World Operations, Inc. (TWO), to plug and abandon (P&A) 111 wells located in the Melton Valley area of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). One hundred and seven of those wells were used to monitor fluid movement and subsurface containment of the low level radioactive liquid waste/grout slurry that was injected into the Pumpkin Valley Shale Formation, underlying ORNL. Four wells were used as hydrofracture injection wells to emplace the waste in the shale formation. Although the practice of hydrofracturing was and is considered by many to pose no threat to human health or the environment, the practice was halted in 1982 after the Federal Underground Injection Control regulations were enacted by United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) making it necessary to properly close the wells. The work is being performed for the United States Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations (DOE ORO). The project team is using the philosophy of minimum waste generation and the principles of ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) as key project goals to minimize personnel and equipment exposure, waste generation, and project costs. Achievement of these goals was …

Due in large part to the number of nuclear facilities that make up the DOE complex, DOE-EM work has historically been paperwork intensive and driven by extensive regulations. Requirements for non-nuclear facilities are often grouped with those of nuclear facilities, driving up costs. Kaiser-Hill was interested in applying a commercial model to demolition of these facilities and wanted to apply necessary and sufficient standards to the work activities, but avoid applying unnecessary requirements. Faced with demolishing hundreds of uncontaminated or non-radiologically contaminated facilities, Kaiser-Hill has developed a subcontracting strategy to drastically reduce the cost of demolishing these facilities at Rocky Flats. Aiming to tailor the demolition approach of such facilities to more closely follow commercial practices, Kaiser-Hill recently released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the demolition of the site's former central administration facility. The RFP significantly reduced requirements for compliance with specific DOE directives. Instead, the RFP required subcontractors to comply with health and safety requirements commonly found in the demolition of similar facilities in a commercial setting. This resulted in a number of bids from companies who have normally not bid on DOE work previously and at a reduced cost over previous approaches. This paper will discuss the …

A pilot-scale MSO (Molten Salt Oxidation) system was used to process 45-gallons of a halogenated mixed waste that is difficult to treat with other thermal systems. The mixed waste was a halogenated solvent that consisted mostly of methylchloroform. The 80 weight percent of waste consisting of highly corrosive chlorine was captured in the first process vessel as sodium chloride. The sodium chloride leached chrome from that process vessel and the solidified salt exhibited the toxicity characteristic for chrome as measured by TCLP (Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure) testing. The operating ranges for parameters such as salt bed temperature, off-gas temperature, and feed rate that enable sustained operation were identified. At feed rates below the sustainable limit, both processing capacity and maintenance requirements increased with feed rate. Design and operational modifications to increase the sustainable feed rate limit and reduce maintenance requirements reduced both salt carryover and volumetric gas flows.

The AECL, Whiteshell Laboratory (WL) near Pinawa Manitoba, Canada, was established in the early 1960's to carry out AECL research and development activities for higher temperature versions of the CANDU{reg_sign} reactor. The initial focus of the research program was the Whiteshell Reactor-1 (WR-1) Organic Cooled Reactor (OCR) that began operation in 1965. The OCR program was discontinued in the early 1970's in favor of the successful heavy-water-cooled CANDU system. WR-1 continued to operate until 1985 in support of AECL nuclear research programs. A consequence of the Federal government's recent program review process was AECL's business decision to discontinue research programs and operations at the Whiteshell Laboratories and to consolidate its' activities at the Chalk River Laboratories. As a result, AECL received government concurrence in 1998 to proceed to plan actions to achieve closure of WL. The planning actions now in progress address the need to safely and effectively transition the WL site from an operational state, in support of AECL's business, to a shutdown and decommissioned state that meets the regulatory requirements for a licensed nuclear site. The decommissioning program that will be required at WL is unique within AECL and Canada since it will need to address the entire …

Envirocare of Utah, Inc. operates a Low Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) and 11e. disposal facility in the Utah west dessert. Envirocare disposes of LLRW in above ground cells. A seven-foot excavation lined with two feet of clay comprises the cell floor. Approximately 22 feet of waste is then placed in the cell in one-foot thick compacted lifts. The cover system consists of a nine-foot clay radon barrier and three-foot rock erosion barrier. This is required to prevent radon emissions at the surface of the radon barrier from exceeding 20 pCi/m2s, the radon release standard in Criterion 6 of 10 CFR 40. The required thickness of the current clay radon barrier cover was based on the original radon flux model used to evaluate the safety of Envirocare's proposed LLRW and 11e.(2) license operations. Because of the lack of actual measurements, universally conservative values were used for the long-term moisture content and the radon diffusion coefficients of the waste and radon barrier material. Since receiving its license, Envirocare has collected a number of samples from the radon barrier and waste material to determine their actual radon attenuation characteristics, including the long-term moisture content and the associated radon diffusion coefficient. In addition, radon …

With the recent fall of the Soviet government and the decommissioning of defense plants in the U.S. DOE Complex, and the increasing worldwide emphasis on environmental restoration and controls, a critical need has developed for a proven ''off the shelf'' technology to deal with these enormous hazardous waste issues. While many new technologies are on the horizon and under development to handle complex waste streams, few of these offer immediate solutions. High technology polymers are an answer to present day needs that will allow immediate burial site disposal, above ground depository use for ''safe store'' applications, and stabilization and immobilization plans for safe transport or incineration at a later date.

A series of time-lapse seismic cross well and single well experiments were conducted in a diatomite reservoir to monitor the injection of CO{sub 2} into a hydrofracture zone, based on P- and S-wave data. A high-frequency piezo-electric P-wave source and an orbital-vibrator S-wave source were used to generate waves that were recorded by hydrophones as well as three-component geophones. The injection well was located about 12 m from the source well. During the pre-injection phase water was injected into the hydrofrac-zone. The set of seismic experiments was repeated after a time interval of 7 months during which CO{sub 2} was injected into the hydrofractured zone. The questions to be answered ranged from the detectability of the geologic structure in the diatomic reservoir to the detectability of CO{sub 2} within the hydrofracture. Furthermore it was intended to determine which experiment (cross well or single well) is best suited to resolve these features. During the pre-injection experiment, the P-wave velocities exhibited relatively low values between 1700-1900 m/s, which decreased to 1600-1800 m/s during the post-injection phase (-5%). The analysis of the pre-injection S-wave data revealed slow S-wave velocities between 600-800 m/s, while the post-injection data revealed velocities between 500-700 m/s (-6%). These …

This paper presents a discussion of the demolition of the Building 788 cluster at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS) in Golden, Colorado. The Building 788 Cluster was a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permitted storage facilities and ancillary structures. Topics covered include the methods employed for Project Planning, Regulatory Compliance, Waste Management, Hazard Identification, Radiological Controls, Risk Management, Field Implementation, and Cost Schedule control, and Lessons Learned and Project Closeout.