Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
5/9/2014
Numerous issues handled by the Savannah River Site’s two cleanup contractors so far this year have impacted productivity at the site, including the temporary suspension of operations at H-Canyon, according to a recently released Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site representative report. “During the first quarter of 2014, the site has experienced a mixture of external events, legacy issues, and events caused by inattention to detail, poor quality, or a failure to call a time out. This combination is affecting the productivity of several facilities and worker safety,” says the report, dated April 4. The report went on to say, “DOE and contractor managers have been very sensitive to these negative trends and have been trying to take action before a more serious event occurs.” DOE, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the site’s managing contractor; and Savannah River Remediation, the site’s liquid waste contractor, each did not respond to a request for comment this week on the negative trends.
H-Canyon in ‘Warm Standby’ for Eight Weeks
A new mission at Savannah River’s HB-Line to produce plutonium oxide for feedstock for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility was initially delayed last year due to conduct of operations issues. The facility is currently in “warm standby” for eight weeks. “SRNS stopped dissolver operations at H-Canyon last week when SRNL identified that measured hydrogen gas generation rates may be greater than the calculated hydrogen gas generation volume percent,” states the April 4 DNFSB staff report. “As a result, SRNS declared a positive Unreviewed Safety Question this week. H-Canyon also went into warm standby mode this week and will remain in standby for approximately eight weeks. Much of this time will be spent making modifications to the ventilation system to address the ground level release PISA.”
Since the operations issues last year, SRNS has implemented all required corrective actions “and has shown significant improvement over the past several months,” according to a DOE/SRNS joint response last week. “This was validated through a comprehensive facility self-assessment and an SRNS independent assessment. We are now awaiting the Energy Department’s readiness assessment to confirm our progress and readiness to startup.”
H-Canyon and HB-Line are slated to eventually produce 3.7 metric tons of MOX feedstock. But the HB-Line portion of the mission cannot begin production until DOE completes its readiness assessment. The readiness assessment had been set to occur in April, but last week it was delayed until May. “DOE-SR expects to resume its Department Readiness Assessment of HB-Line in mid-May and complete by the end of May. Operations in HB-Line are expected to begin once the field modifications mentioned above have been completed,” DOE said in a response last week.
Facilities Still Recovering From Cold Weather
Savannah River is also still recovering from the biomass plant outage in January due to an unusual cold snap, which knocked out the steam supply to site facilities and caused damage. “H Laboratory, H-Area Old Manufacturing (HAOM), and H-Canyon continue to repair air handling unit and fire protection systems damaged by the loss of steam in early January. As temperatures reached the upper 80s, SRNS had to curtail some laboratory operations to protect equipment and maintain accuracy and precision,” states the April 4 DNFSB report. “SRR is still repairing and testing the damaged grout line at Saltstone. SRNS was able to declare the HAOM fire suppression system operable yesterday and exit their recovery plan.”
Other Issues
Several other SRNS issues were identified in the recent report, including a lockout at the 235-F facility when “an energized component was unexpectedly found within the bounds of work that was previously deenergized.” Work in 235-F was reduced for several weeks following a technical safety requirements violation. “This pace will be further impacted after engineers identified that several facility drawings were not readily accessible on the site’s document control system,” the report states. Additionally, at two non-nuclear facilities, one worker cut his hand with a reciprocating saw and another was sprayed in the face and eyes with a chemical solution.
SRR issues were listed as well. “During January and February, SRR had five contamination events at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) compared to only two in the previous 10 months,” the report states. And on the week of the April 4 report, “SRR identified they had not been adequately controlling the radiological hazard of the hydro test rig used for testing the grout line integrity.”
