Contractor North Wind Portage has received final go-ahead to tear down the last few remaining contaminated buildings within the Department of Energy’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, California.
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control in a March 4 letter approved DOE plans for demolition of the remaining buildings at the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility within the DOE’s Energy Technology Engineering Center at the Simi Valley location.
Demolition of Building 4038 was to start in the middle of this month and take a month to complete, the state agency said in a Thursday email announcement. DOE will tear down Buildings 4057, 4462, 4463, and 4024 later this year, the California agency added.
DOE’s federal project director John Jones received the green light in the March 4 letter from Steven Becker, chief of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Branch with the Department of Toxics Substances Control.
The DOE contractor will take down the above-ground structures under a 2020 amendment to a prior consent order on the Santa Susana cleanup. Ten of 18 buildings left at the Energy Technology Engineering Center were dismantled as of last November. About half of the remainder have since come down, and the DOE contractor is commencing work on the few that remain. Of the 1960s and 1970s era structures left at the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility, a couple are little more than “sheds,” DOE Office of Environmental Management’s No. 2 official, Todd Shrader, has said.
Environmental and landowner interests in South California have pushed for prompt demolition of the remaining buildings at DOE’s 90-acre Energy Technology Engineering Center for fear of another wildfire in the region, which could spread airborne contamination.
The state agency “will oversee the demolition and disposal of the resulting debris to ensure the activities comply with the 2010 administrative order on Consent” and related legal requirements, according to the letter.
The debris to the buildings will be taken to a licensed mixed low-level radioactive waste disposal facility outside California, according to the letter.
