Progress in the Face of Challenges: The Site Closure Program

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• Progress in the Face of Challenges The Site
  Closure Program

Presented by James J. Fiore Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Site Closure April 24, 2001
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Recent Progress

• In FY 2000, we
• Completed the original cleanup scope at the
  Battelle King Avenue Site in Columbus, OH
• Completed all DD at General Atomics in San
  Diego, CA
• Transferred the Monticello Remedial Action
  Project to the City of Monticello, UT
• Continued shipments of critical materials from
  Rocky Flats to support site closure

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Recent Progress

• In FY 2000, we also
• Certified 42 of the Fernald site land (160
  hectares) meets EPA cleanup levels
• Moved all excess nuclear materials off the Mound
  site
• Completed removal of Drum Mountain from Paducah
• Cleaned out all eight Gunite Tanks at Oak Ridge,
  saving 10 years and over 100M
• Completed decommissioning of the CP-5 Reactor at
  Argonne-East

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Even MORE Recent Progress

• So far in FY 2001, we have
• Transferred ownership of the Grand Junction
  Office Site to the local community
• Completed shipment of classified metal parts from
  Rocky Flats
• Completed our 100th shipment of TRU waste from
  Rocky Flats to WIPP

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Near Term Challenges

• Continued improvements in worker safety
• If we cant do it safely, we wont do it at all!
• Disposition approaches for special nuclear
  materials
• Critical to Rocky Flats, and vital to site
  closure
• Removal of TRU waste from the small sites
• We cant complete these sites while the TRU
  remains

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Near Term Challenges

• Technologies for managing buried waste
• The engineered cap developed with OSTs help will
  save 40M over exhumation at Sandia
• Effective decontamination of concrete and metals
  and additional technologies for waste
  minimization/volume reduction
• It saves us money and its the right thing to do

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Secretarial Budgetary Guidance

• Ensure the best available technologies and
  business practices are applied to cleanup
• Set priorities with regulators to address
  important health, safety and environmental needs
• Focus resources on reducing overhead and site
  operating costs to free up funds for cleanup and
  closure

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An Opportunity?

• Regulators and DOE have opportunities to consider
  new technologies
• Partnerships and activities like ITRC really help
• Multiple deployments will become the norm
• We can pursue more innovative approaches and
  best in class technologies

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Last Year I Said

• The Office of Site Closure would
• Work more closely with OST
• Pursue more demonstration and deployments
• Focus on worker safety, enabling technologies and
  saving time and money

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Collaboration Works!

• Together, OSC and OST exceeded even my goals over
  the past 18 months
• Lasagna In Situ Thermal technology at Paducah is
  destroying high concentrations of TCE
• Chemical Extraction Soil Washing at Ashtabula has
  saved over 2M to date (with the potential to
  save millions more!)
• Dynamic Underground Stripping/Hydrous Pyrolysis
  at Portsmouth (with Livermores technical
  assistance) continues to remove and destroy
  organics

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Collaboration Works!

• More Results
• In Situ Object Counting System and BetaScint
  Fiber Optic Sensor assesses contamination at
  Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor
• Pipe Explorer helped us complete Battelle
  Columbus
• Permeable Reactive Treatment Wall at Monticello
  is accelerating natural attenuation
• Non destructive assay of TRU waste at Nevada is
  promoting final disposal of this waste at WIPP

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Longer-Term Challenges

• Stewardship
• We must ensure that the solutions we employ today
  do not create new problems for tomorrow
• We look to OST to help us develop not just in
  situ closure technologies, but technologies to
  enable us to monitor the wastes over time
• We need technologies that improve surveillance
  and maintenance efficiencies and minimize
  resource requirements over todays baseline
  technologies

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Cost Savings

• Our savings range from small to large, but they
  ALL matter
• Combining soil and debris shipments at Envirocare
  (savings at West Valley, Ashtabula, and Paducah)
• Segmented Gate System at Sandia and Los Alamos
• Groundwater Re-injection Demonstration at Fernald

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Conclusion

• Collaboration works!
• Remote characterization and size reduction of
  glove boxes at Rocky Flats
• Long-term stewardship technology project at
  Fernald
• Technical assistance for contaminated groundwater
  at Pantex
• These are gifts that keep on giving thanks to
  technology transfer