The Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) resumed operations last week, ending a four-month scheduled outage that allowed workers to tie the $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) into the rest of the liquid waste system at the Department of Energy complex in South Carolina.
The DWPF is again treating radioactive sludge waste, which comprises 10% of the 35 million gallons of liquid waste stored in 41 Cold War-era tanks at the 310-square-mile site near the city of Aiken. The rest of the waste volume is salt waste that will be treated using the SWPF, which is expected to start operations in the first quarter of 2020.
The DWPF outage began on Aug. 1. Since the liquid waste system – which includes the tank farms, the defense waste facility, and waste storage facilities – is all interconnected, DWPF and other waste-related facilities had to be shut down so the salt waste facility could be connected. The outage allowed salt waste contractor Parsons to focus on connecting SWPF and testing the facility to ensure it could process salt waste.
Meanwhile, liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) used the time to repair mercury pumps at the DWPF. “The scheduled shutdown of the liquid waste system afforded us the time and opportunity to make repairs and improvements to equipment that should help provide better mercury separation, making our overall processes more efficient,” a DOE spokesperson said by email.
At any given time, about 60 metric tons of mercury is mixed in with liquid waste in the site’s tank farms and facilities. The toxic material is used as a dissolvent for reactor fuel during ongoing nuclear material processing operations at Savannah River’s H Canyon. When mercury is pumped out of the liquid waste system, it is recycled back to H Canyon for reuse. The DWPF initially accepts the material, then redirects it out of the system while processing liquid waste.
During the outage, Savannah River Remediation redesigned the plug for the pump and repaired severed pump lines. With the restart of DWPF operations, the contractor is also increasing the pH levels in the facility’s waste evaporator tank. This will increase the amount of mercury that is pulled from the waste stream, something workers discovered through routine testing of the method. Overall, non-labor cost of the mercury pump repairs and other minor equipment repairs during the outage cost about $250,000.
The Defense Waste Processing Facility converts sludge waste into less harmful, glass form suitable for interim storage at Savannah River. The treated material will remain there until the federal government decides on a permanent repository for the nation’s defense waste.
The Energy Department is approaching the long-awaited startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which will remove cesium and actinides from the salt waste and transfer those elements to the DWPF for processing as sludge waste. The remaining salt solution will be sent to the SRS Saltstone Disposal Facility for permanent storage.
The Energy Department hired Parsons in in 2002 to design, build, and oversee the first year of operations for the facility. Construction was completed in June 2018. At that time, the Energy Department and Parsons anticipated a December 2018 startup, but equipment issues pushed that projection back to December 2019. Now, Parsons expects the facility to begin operations in the first quarter of 2019, still months ahead of the January 2021 deadline in the contract.
Over the past few months, the contractor and the federal agency have resolved multiple disputes over Parsons’ management of the salt waste facility. In March 2018, DOE accused Parsons of a deteriorating work performance that was causing issues at the facility, such as workers not following safety protocols and the company’s replacement of key personnel without proper federal approval. Parsons countered that the Energy Department mischaracterized its performance. That spat ended with Parsons agreeing to provide a new project baseline addressing the remaining work scope, deadlines, and costs for its work. Neither the contractor nor DOE have released the new baseline.
In March of this year, the Energy Department attempted to collect $33 million in disincentive fees from Parsons, claiming missed deadlines and overspending. Parsons denied those claims and instead said DOE had been shorting the company on payments for its work. In October, a Parsons spokesperson said the federal agency compensated Parsons for those payment shortages. Neither side would provide details on the dollar amount or details on how DOE shorted Parsons.
