STATE UNHAPPY WITH NEW DOE PUMPING PLAN
WC Monitor
3/14/2014
A Department of Energy plan to wait at least two years to pump waste from a damaged double-shell tank at Hanford is unacceptable, according to the state of Washington. DOE’s plan “demonstrates the federal government’s lack of commitment to set a firm, near-term schedule for the removal of waste from leaking double-shell Tank AY-102,” the state Department of Ecology said in a statement this week. DOE plans to start purchasing equipment and making other preparations to remove sludge from Tank AY-102, which has been found to have waste leaking between its inner and outer shells, but pumping of waste would start no sooner than March 2016, according to a new DOE plan released to meet a state deadline late last week.
DOE’s previous plan, as the state understood it, was to take no action to remove waste from the tank until conditions worsened, the state said in a January letter that demanded that DOE come up with a pumping plan that met state requirements. State regulations require DOE to pump the tank as soon as is practicable, and DOE already has equipment in place to remove liquid waste from the tank. But no waste would be pumped until DOE is ready to proceed with both liquid and sludge removal, according to the new plan.
Preparations for retrieving waste would be done in two phases. The first phase would include engineering, purchasing equipment and installing equipment outside the tank. That would be completed in November 2015. Then DOE would evaluate the situation, determining when waste retrieval equipment should be installed inside the tank and when waste removal should begin, according to the plan. Construction of the waste retrieval and transfer system would be completed no earlier than February 2016 and authorization would be given no sooner than the March 2016 to begin pumping. Pumping liquid out now is technically feasible, but has risks because the liquid helps cool the waste, the pumping plan said. The sludge generates heat as it radioactively decays, and heat can increase corrosion rates in the tank and contribute to generating potentially flammable hydrogen gas.
Waste Removal May Impact Leak
Any action to remove liquid waste also might affect the rate at which the inner shell is leaking, according to the plan. Potential causes for the leak from the inner shell of the tank have been identified, but not confirmed. DOE suspects that a combination of difficulties in constructing the tank in 1969 and the type of waste it holds may be responsible for the leak. The bottom layer of waste did not have chemicals added to inhibit corrosion and high-heat waste has been added above that layer. The plan also points out that the leak is believed to be contained between the two shells of the tank, rather than reaching the soil beneath the underground tank. The best course of action appears to be not to pump out liquid until sludge also can be removed, unless conditions significantly worsen, the plan said. The level of liquid waste has been allowed to drop some due to evaporation but DOE has determined that a minimum of 48 inches of liquid waste must be kept above the sludge in the 75-foot-diameter tank, according to the plan.
In its statement, the Department of Ecology said, “We recognize the issues that (DOE) is concerned with regarding available tank space, cost and the absence of immediate danger to the public. However, those do not mitigate the need to take all precautions to avoid further risk to human health and the environment.” The new plan admits the federal government’s obligation to remove the waste from the tank, but lacks a firm near-term schedule for removal of waste from the tank, the state said. The state does not have confidence in any of the dates that are included in the plan because they are attached to potential events that could impact schedules and could cause further delays, the state said. DOE confirmed the tank had a leak between its shells in October 2012 after waste was discovered in the annulus in two places. Last week waste was discovered in a third place in the annulus, reinforcing the need to start pumping liquid waste now, the state said.
WRPS, UNION TO ARBITRATE OVER FIRED WORKERS
WC Monitor
3/14/2014
The Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council and Hanford tank farms contractor Washington River Protection Solutions have agreed to enter into arbitration over what the union has said is the unfair termination of four employees last year. As a result, a federal judge late last week agreed to dismiss a lawsuit HAMTC had filed against WRPS over the issue (WC Monitor, Vol. 25 No. 5). “We were compelled to file the lawsuit in order to compel WRPS to simply arbitrate the matter. WRPS signed an agreement with HAMTC that the four named individuals would receive no further discipline and they violated that agreement, plus the CBA [collective bargaining agreement]. They need to be held accountable,” HAMTC President Dave Molnaa said in a written response this week. WRPS declined to comment.
In its suit, filed early this year, HAMTC had accused WRPS of terminating four employees—Darin Judy, Doug Mallory, Rhonda Stamper and Tom Huebner—in violation of a collective bargaining agreement. According to the union, under the collective bargaining agreement, the four employees “would receive written disciplinary warnings for alleged misconduct related to an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General” and that those written warnings “‘will be the last action concerning the … employees related to this issue.’” While the lawsuit did not say what “misconduct” the four employees were accused of, all four have plead guilty to charges of time card fraud that occurred under former tank farms contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group. HAMTC sought in its suit a “full make-whole remedy” that would have included reinstating the terminated workers with full back pay and benefits, or to have WRPS submit to arbitration as to whether the terminations violated collective bargaining agreements.
DOE OUTLINES PROPOSED WASTE STAGING FACILITY
WC Monitor
3/14/2014
The Department of Energy is considering building a new facility between the Hanford tank farms and the Waste Treatment Plant to mix, blend, sample and stage waste and do some pretreatment of waste before it is sent to the vitrification plant. It’s the second of two possible new facilities DOE has discussed this year that were included in DOE’s framework document that it released in September after a year of studying technical issues related to treating Hanford’s tank waste. The Hanford double-shell waste tanks were not built with feeding waste to a treatment plant in mind, said Isabelle Wheeler, DOE program manager of waste feed delivery systems for the Hanford tank farms. She spoke this week at a committee meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board. The proposed facility would mix waste so the solids are suspended in the liquids. It would blend the waste so not too much or too little is included in batches sent to the vitrification plant. And it also would have capabilities to allow good samples of waste to be collected to make sure the waste falls within the parameters the vitrification plant is prepared to handle and treat. That would allow waste to be delivered to the plant.
But it also could do some work to address concerns about whether the vitrification plant can safely handle certain waste. The proposed new facility would have capabilities to “precondition” some of the waste that could be problematic for the vitrification plant’s Pretreatment Facility, including organics, large particles, dense particles and specific isotopes. Various options are being considered to reduce the size of particles and it also could make sure that not too much of a specific isotope is sent to the vitrification plant, according to DOE. “Basically we would keep the problem in house and manage it in house on the tank farm side,” Wheeler said. Concerns have been raised about keeping high-level radioactive waste adequately mixed and preventing a buildup of plutonium that could lead to a criticality at the vitrification plant. Managing the problematic waste could allow some waste to be sent directly to the High Level Waste Facility for treatment, bypassing the Pretreatment Facility at the vitrification plant if needed, Wheeler said. Construction has stopped at the Pretreatment Facility until technical issues are addressed.
The other new facility discussed in the framework document would be an interim pretreatment system, an underground plant to pretreat liquid tank waste and allow it to bypass the Pretreatment Facility and go directly to the Low-Activity Waste Facility. The proposed new facility could allow the vitrification plant project to finalize the waste acceptance criteria and potentially reduce the requirement for and costs of long-term full-scale vessel testing for the Pretreatment Facility, Wheeler said. It also could allow the finalization of the design of the plant, she said.
New Facility Could Reduce Need for Tank Upgrades
The new waste sampling and staging facility would reduce risks of upgrading aging waste tanks, Wheeler said. Some of the work proposed for the new facility, such as mixing waste could be done in existing double-shell tanks, would require putting multiple powerful mixers in aging tanks past their design life, she said. Double-shell Tank AY-102 was expected to be the feed tank for the vitrification plant before a leak between its shells was discovered last year. Building a new facility in a location without previous contamination would be easier than retrofitting a radioactive facility, and it would have up-to-date safety and radiation-control systems to reduce risks to workers, Wheeler said.
The proposed facility also could have some waste storage capacity benefits. It would have some storage as waste is staged there before being transferred to the vitrification plant and also might allow some high level radioactive waste to be treated sooner, freeing up space in Hanford’s double-shell tanks. The proposed new facility to stage and prepare waste still is in the conceptual phase—Wheeler refers to it as a capability rather than a facility—and there are no schematics to show what it might look like and no estimates of its cost or its capacity, Wheeler said. She would not anticipate the facility being commissioned until 2020, but that could change if the project is fast-tracked, she said.
