WC Monitor
12/4/2015
SRNS Saves Millions on Groundwater Cleanup Through New Methods
Moving away from mechanized pump-and-treat facilities to more “simple,” multiphased passive cleanup methods has reduced costs for remediation of Savannah River Site’s groundwater from $12 million per year to approximately $1 million annually, the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management said last week. When SRS produced national defense nuclear materials between the 1950s and 1980s, some of the groundwater in the site’s F Area became contaminated with small amounts of radioactive tritium, uranium, strontium-90, and iodine-129. “[Savannah River Nuclear Solutions] and Savannah River National Laboratory are working together to find innovate remedial solutions at the Savannah River Site that are protective, technically feasible, safe, and cost effective,” DOE-SR/Infrastructure and Area Completion Division Physical Scientist Phillip Prater said in a statement.
One of the methods involves injections of silver chloride, an unconventional environmental cleanup material, to treat the iodine-129, according to the EM announcement. Silver chloride is normally used to make photographic paper and as an antidote for mercury poisoning. “In essence, working with Savannah River National Laboratory scientists, we’ve found that over a short time period the silver chloride can permanently bind the hazardous iodine-129 as silver iodide because of its strong natural chemical affinity,” SRNS geologist Gerald Blount said in a statement.
