Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
4/10/2015
With construction of Savannah River’s Salt Waste Processing Facility currently on track to be completed months ahead of schedule in May 2016, efforts are also focusing on integrating the plant into the site’s existing liquid waste system. The SWPF is designed to significantly increase processing rates of liquid waste in the site’s high-level waste tanks when compared to the interim capability currently being used, meaning that when the existing site facilities are tied into the new plant they must be ready for the increased throughput. “We are going to take out a small wheel and we are going to put a really big wheel in that chain of cogs,” Department of Energy SWPF Federal Project Director Pam Marks said last month at the 2015 Waste Management conference in Phoenix. “First of all, it completes the system. It’s been what we’ve been working towards and hoping to accomplish for decades at the Savannah River Site, to really pick up the pace and be able to move forward with salt waste processing and tank closure. When you think about the dynamics of the whole system, everything else is going to have to run a whole lot faster.”
The SWPF had originally been scheduled to complete startup by an October 2015 regulatory commitment, but in 2012 lengthy delays in completion of a key set of vessels set that back. In 2013, DOE and construction contractor Parsons reached an agreement to complete construction by the end of 2016, with incentives for the contractor for early completion, and last September DOE approved a new baseline including those dates. But Parsons is well ahead of schedule. “We are going to finish construction in May of 2016 or earlier,” Parsons’ SWPF Project Manager Frank Sheppard said at the Waste Management conference. The contractor is also currently under budget by about $50 million of the $530 million in the latest estimate to complete the project, Sheppard said.
‘Integration is the Key’
Savannah River’s current liquid waste processing system, the Actinide Removal Process and Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (ARP/MCU), is considered a small pilot plant for the SWPF that is using the same processes that will ultimately be deployed in the facility. The ARP/MCU system separates lower-level waste for disposal as a cemented grout called Saltstone, while the higher-activity waste goes to the Defense Waste Processing Facility for vitrification. If ARP/MCU is “the little engine that could,” Marks says, SWPF is “the big engine that will.” Increasing processing rates with the new plant allows tanks to be closed sooner, at a time when state regulators and DOE are in dispute over missed deadlines for tank closure. “Integration is the key,” Marks said, adding later, “We are spending a lot of time making sure we understand the impacts we will have on the rest of the site and how they have to integrate and what they have to do to get ready so when we are ready to operate the whole system works effectively. We have to be agile, we have to be synchronized.”
SRR Working to Get Off ‘Critical Path’
Currently, Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractor at the site, is working on activities and projects that are on the “critical path” for SWPF startup, SRR President Stuart Macvean said at Waste Management conference. “I would just as soon get off the critical path,” he said, noting that SRR is working closely with Parsons as the SWPF progresses. “We’ve been tucked right in, watching their schedule very closely to make sure that we know exactly where they are at. Our schedule is following theirs to make sure that we don’t get caught off guard if they get done early and we’re not,” Macvean said. DOE and site contractors have set up a monthly project integration meeting to review schedules.
Among the activities SRR is currently undertaking in preparation for SWPF startup are modifications at DWPF to allow it to accept higher rad material and increase the capability of saltstone grout. Additionally, SRR is completing construction of much larger saltstone disposal vaults. There are also numerous modifications underway at the blend and feed tanks for SWPF, as well as transfer line modifications to make the connections with the new facility.
Facility startup is currently scheduled for December 2018, ahead of a May 2019 date originally included in the baseline, Sheppard said. “You might think it’s three-and-a half-years away, you don’t need to do it. You absolutely need to do it now,” he said. “We are looking at three different schedules all tied together, the DOE schedule, the Parsons schedule and SRR’s schedule and any other interfaces we may need with [M&O contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions].”
SWPF Set to be ‘Major Success Story’
SWPF is set to be a “major success story,” DOE Savannah River Manager Dave Moody told WC Monitor last week. “I’m very pleased with the collaboration and cooperation that is occurring between Savannah River Remediation, our liquid waste contractor, and Parsons,” Moody said. “So far we are on track with all of those tie-in activities that have to occur to make this happen. I am hopeful as that as the cooperation and collaboration continues we’ll be in a good position to turn on Salt Waste Processing in 2018 and have all of the tie ins and have all of it done.”
