Workers Enter PFP’s McCluskey Room
WC Monitor
9/12/2014
Workers entered the McCluskey Room, the site of one of Hanford’s worst radiological accidents, this week after a year of preparation. The room still contains the glovebox where a 1976 chemical explosion shattered the thick glass windows of the box. Radioactive concentrated nitric acid and shards of glass and metal sprayed into the neck and face of worker Harold McCluskey. He received 500 times the amount of radiation doctors considered safe in a lifetime, but survived and came to be known as the Atomic Man. The room at the Plutonium Finishing Plant was too radioactively contaminated to be used again and was shut up for periods of as long as 15 years at a time before a serious cleanup effort began in 2010. Workers used federal Recovery Act money then to enter the room more than 200 times wearing supplied-air respirators, before money ran out.
Three of the McCluskey Room gloveboxes remain, including one that stretches down the center of the room and the glove box that was damaged in the explosion. Over the next year, workers will remove large pieces of processing equipment, including the gloveboxes and tanks. "This was the first of multiple entries workers will make to clean out processing equipment and get the McCluskey Room ready for demolition along with the rest of the plant," said Bryan Foley, Department of Energy project director.
CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company workers will continue to enter the room four at a time, with a support team of at least 15 workers to assist in dressing, undressing and monitoring during each extensively planned and choreographed entry. Numerous hazards remain in the room as the result of the chemical explosion, including airborne radioactivity and surface contamination. During the initial re-entry, workers established lighting and surveyed for radiation. One of the next tasks for the crew will be to improve ventilation and airflow to better protect workers from the airborne contamination in the room as they clean out the room and its equipment. "The time and effort workers put into finding the right equipment and training will ensure they are as prepared as possible to remain safe during the cleanup," Foley said.
New Protective Gear in Use
Workers are wearing protective gear that is being used at Hanford for the first time, after traveling to the Idaho Cleanup Project to check out the gear used there. They include billowing, air-filled one-piece suits with air supplied by a compressor for both breathing and to circulate through the suits for cooling. Monitors check for radiation inside the suits and transmit information to a computer. The suits contain “an escape pack,” a container with enough air to allow workers to leave the McCluskey Room if something goes wrong with their supplied air system. The new suits are expected to allow substantially longer entries into the room than the 45 minutes allowed in the suits used previously. Input from workers on the equipment has led to adjustments and "has been the key to being able to enter the room safely as we start this challenging cleanup project," said Mike Swartz, CH2M Hill vice president.
Advisory Board Concerned Over Reactor Area Cleanup Plans
WC Monitor
9/12/2014
The Hanford Advisory Board remains concerned about the thoroughness of proposed final plans for the first of the Hanford reactor areas on which cleanup is being completed. In one spot near the former F Reactor, contamination is not projected to dissipate for 264 years if the Department of Energy follows its preferred plan to allow it to naturally dissipate, the board said at its September meeting, held last week. It is one of 15 waste sites with contamination deeper than 15 feet in the ground near F Reactor along the Columbia River. In another place there, irrigation would be prohibited as a conservative measure, according to DOE. The final cleanup proposal for the area around F Reactor is being scrutinized by the board and other interested groups as a document that is likely to set the tone for the cleanup around all nine Hanford production reactors. Most cleanup at F Reactor has been completed over the last two decades, with 2 million tons of contaminated material removed. DOE and its regulators now are considering what remaining work should be done. After a final cleanup decision is made, a review every five years will make sure that public health and the environment remain protected.
DOE Plans Would Cost a Total of $57 Million
DOE is proposing a soil cleanup plan that would cost $21 million and a groundwater plan estimated to cost $36 million. The proposal would rely partly on institutional controls to prevent some remaining contamination from being disturbed for what the board said is as long as 264 years and natural attenuation of chemical and radionuclides. That could include processes such as biodegradation, dispersion, dilution and radioactive decay. The proposed plan would prevent some use of Hanford land and resources, board members said. “Keeping people from using valuable groundwater and sites alongside the Columbia River at Hanford is not a cleanup plan,” said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest. “People will be exposed to dangerous contamination, including tribal members exercising their treaty rights to live along and fish along those shorelines.” Some groundwater contaminants could be removed sooner by active treatment, including pump and treat systems. However, the estimated cost would be $177 million to $194 million. Cost should not be a determining criterion that prohibits cleanup thorough enough to allow unrestricted use, the board said.
The board advised the Tri-Party Agencies –DOE, the state of Washington and the Environmental Protection Agency —to take action as appropriate to significantly reduce the time in which cleanup goals are attained. The use of controls to prevent disturbance of waste over long periods is not acceptable near the F Reactor, it said. It particularly wants waste to be dug up at the site where contamination will not dissipate for 264 years. DOE said leaving some contaminants deeper than 15 feet in the ground meets Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act requirements. The ground would have to be dug up to deeper than 15 feet for people to come in contact with the waste, it said. The board also advised that future documents and reviews look at possible indications that waste is not dissipating as expected. With a need for controls to be maintained for as long as 264 years, the consequences of events such as severe flooding or the failure of the Grand Coulee Dam upstream on the Columbia River also should be considered, the board advised.
More Public Information Needed, Some Board Members Say
Some board members also were concerned that materials released to explain the proposed cleanup plan during a public comment period that closed in August were not as complete as they believed they should be. As plans for final cleanup around other reactors is considered, information should be made available to the public providing specific notice of restrictions on use of land, water or other resources that would be required by cleanup proposals, Pollet said. The public also should have a chance to say if DOE’s expectations for exposure to the public, based on how the land and resources might be used, are reasonable, he said. The board may consider more recommendations to DOE before the next public comment period on proposed final cleanup plans for reactor areas.
