A major waste treatment facility at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site as of this week remained in deliberate operations, more than four months after it was placed into the slowed work mode due to multiple safety-related incidents. Officials at the South Carolina facility did not respond to an inquiry regarding how much longer the situation is expected to last.
The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) was placed in deliberate operations in June following three technical safety requirement violations and a contamination incident, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) wrote in a June 23 report. The facility converts Cold War-era liquid radioactive waste stored at SRS into a glass form that is safe for interim storage at the site. Eventually, that material will be sent to a permanent federal repository.
The safety issues at the facility included a failure to establish a “specific administrative control” intended to prevent accidents. In short, the SRS liquid waste contractor, Savannah River Remediation (SRR), suffered a lapse in communication while transferring waste. The lapse caused the contractor to transfer the waste before ceasing work that could have compromised the process, according to a May 26 DNFSB report.
Then, in a June 9 report, the board reported that two workers with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations contractor, were contaminated by radioactively contaminated oil near DWPF while taking samples of the material. The workers were not seriously harmed.
These and other incidents led the site to place DWPF in deliberate operations, a reduced work phase in which personnel pay extra attention to detail and planning when conducting operations. That includes putting waste transfers on hold.
A DOE spokesperson said by email Thursday that an oversight committee of SRS officials was formed to improve safety efforts. As a result, work authorization processes, steps workers must take to complete their missions, have been strengthened to include a stronger emphasis on safety.
The spokesperson also wrote that SRS has improved training for its safety basis, a standard that relates to the control of hazards at a nuclear facility, including design, engineering analyses, and administrative controls. DOE looks at the safety basis to determine the safety of an operational environment. “Procedures have been revised and roles and responsibilities clarified to provide an additional means of identifying Safety Basis impacts,” the spokesperson stated. “Safety Basis training is being enhanced through scenario based training using the DWPF simulator.”
Other actions will soon be implemented to address the issues at DWPF. One is a training improvement plan that will include add to the number trainers who will help employees learn safety protocols. Also, DOE will increase the number of workers at DWPF and provide an “increase in training hours to maintain a higher level of proficiency.” The spokesperson did not provide details on how many more workers will be hired, or how many hours of training will be added.
The deliberate operations phase has not caused any long-term work or financial impacts because waste processing at the site has been suspended all year due to repairs at DWPF. The site reported in February that it was halting all liquid waste processing due to the failure of Melter 2: a 65-ton refractory-lined melting vessel that functions as part of DWPF.
The suspension is expected to last through the remainder of 2017 as SRS prepares to activate Melter 3 at the facility. That process includes connecting the melter to DWPF, modifying the piping so waste can be easily transferred to the plant from other waste facilities, and conducting any related maintenance work. The transfer is expected to be completed this year.
All told, SRS houses more than 30 million gallons of waste in over 40 underground tanks. About 90 percent of that waste is salt waste, and has been processed using a pilot facility. The waste will eventually be processed through the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), which is on pace for a December 2018 startup. Once operational, SWPF will increase processing from 1.5 million gallons a year to 6 million.
