A major coal ash cleanup project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina was completed this month, more than a year ahead of schedule and for about $9 million less than the original $74 million estimate.
The agency said in a press release Friday that site management contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) had completed the large project that included consolidation of 430,000 cubic yards of coal ash.
The coal ash, stored on 90 acres of land at SRS, was generated by coal-fueled facilities once used to power the site from the 1950s to 2011. Those facilities now run on steam.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions in August 2015 set out to clean and close out two basins in D Area that stored the coal ash. Phase 1 of the project, completed in January of this year, consolidated 90,000 cubic yards of ash and contaminated soil from the two storage basins into one 21-acre landfill. Phase 2, which was completed this month, involved more than 300,000 cubic yards of coal ash. That material now permanently sits in one of the original ash basins in D Area. Water used for the cleaning was stored in a separate runoff basin also for permanent disposal.
The Energy Department said the bulk of the savings came from using a low-cost geosynthetic layer to cover the material once it was consolidated. The plan was always to use a geosynthetic layer, but SRNS identified a similar, less expensive plastic protective barrier that met all the criteria for permeability and durability.
