The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday it had completed decommissioning of the radioactively contaminated STURGIS barge, which should be towed next week for shipbreaking.
The parts of the retired nuclear reactor and all other radioactive waste on the vessel have been removed at the Port of Galveston, Texas, and shipped to Waste Control Specialists’ disposal facility in West Texas. That encompasses 1.5 million pounds of waste and 600,000 pounds of lead directed for recycling, according to an Army Corps announcement.
After several weeks of surveys for potential contamination at the decommissioning site, the Army Corps determined it was safe to tow the STURGIS. Final planning was underway Friday.
“We anticipate finishing the necessary documentation and planning to be ready to tow the STURGIS from Galveston to Brownsville the week of September 24th,” Brenda Barber, project manager at the USACE Baltimore District’s Environmental and Munitions Design Center, said in an email update on the project. “The tow is planned to take about three days. The team will closely monitor the weather in the area to ensure conditions are safe prior to beginning the tow.”
International Shipbreaking Ltd. will tow the vessel and then conduct shipbreaking under a $1.9 million contract awarded in May.
Actual shipbreaking is expected to wrap up early next year, Barber said. It will involve recycling about 5,500 tons of steel and other metals from the vessel.
Demobilization and the last checks for radiological contamination at the Port of Galveston work site are expected to last four weeks.
The STURGIS was a World War II Liberty Ship that was subsequently deployed with a nuclear power reactor to provide energy for U.S. operations in Panama from 1968 to 1976. It was towed from the James River Reserve Fleet in Virginia to the Port of Galveston in April 2015. Decommissioning was expected to cost just shy of $66.5 million.
