Tearing down 10 contaminated Department of Energy buildings must precede further cleanup at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County , California state officials said during an online meeting Thursday.
Representatives of the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control expect final approval next month of the DOE plan announced in May to demolish deteriorating buildings within the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility (RMHF) Complex.
Asked why remediation of soil and underground components at the facility are not included in the plan, managers from both state agencies said demolishing the buildings to the slab should occur first.
The Energy Department agreed to dismantle most of the buildings at the 2-acre Radioactive Materials Handling Facility, an area of DOE’s Energy Technology Engineering Center at Santa Susana built 60 years ago to handle nuclear fuel. The buildings are laden with radionuclides, heavy metals, solvents, oils, asbestos, and greases.
Residents around the 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory, along with the state of California, have pushed for prompt demolition of the buildings before a wildfire could burn some of the structures at DOE’s portion of the site and disburse contaminants into the air. In November 2018, the Woolsey Fire charred 96,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura County, including parts of Santa Susana. None of the DOE buildings burned.
The Energy Department expects to complete demolition and haul away the debris to a licensed low-level radioactive waste facility within six months. It says funding for the project, not expected to cost more than $9 million, is already in place in fiscal 2020, which ends Sept. 30.
A maximum of 16 truckloads of debris per day will leave the RMHF, though the number most days will be far below that cap, according to the state presentation.
The Energy Department is working with the state to reach plans for demolition of the other eight buildings at RMHF not covered by this agreement. In addition to DOE, other parties responsible for cleanup for Santa Susana are NASA and Boeing.
