The decommissioning and dismantlement of the STURGIS barge, free of radioactive contamination and a former nuclear power reactor, was effectively completed last week, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
International Shipbreaking Ltd. has been sectioning the vessel at its Brownsville, Texas, facility since January. As work has proceeded, more of the STURGIS has been moved from the water onto a dock platform. The vessel was fully removed from the water around March 13 for the final segmentation, the Army Corps said in a March 15 update on the project.
The vessel was cut into dozens of sections, from stern to bow, after shipbreaking began. “The key to the sectioning is to ensure the vessel stays on an even keel so the crews can continue to execute their work safely,” Brenda Barber, project manager for the Army Corps Baltimore District’s Environmental and Munitions Design Center, said by email this week. “A majority of the sectioning was done prior to the STURGIS being moved into the graving cradle. Once a majority of the vessel had been cut apart, the STURGIS was moved into the graving cradle. Approximately 30-40 sections were cut once she was in the graving cradle” last week.
The final work encompasses removal and disposal of asbestos, lead-based paint, and other waste materials from the remaining sections of the barge; preparing the last pieces of the STURGIS for recycling; and publishing reports on project closure and the history of the vessel.
About 5,800 tons of steel and other metals are being recycled, which requires the sections to be cut into smaller pieces of roughly 2 feet by 2 feet.
Both waste disposal and recycling are expected to be completed in about 30 days, according to Barber.
International Shipbreaking received its $1.6 million contract in May 2018. It completed shipbreaking on budget and two weeks ahead of the anticipated March 30 end date, Barber said.
The STURGIS started life as a World War II Liberty Ship, then was equipped with a nuclear power reactor and deployed to Panama to support Panama Canal operations from 1968 to 1976. After removal of the reactor and sitting for decades at the James River Reserve Fleet in Virginia, the barge was towed to the Port of Galveston, Texas, in April 2015.
APTIM Federal Services decommissioned the vessel, including removal of remaining reactor components and remediation of radioactive waste. That portion of the project cost nearly $66.5 million, well above the initial $34.6 million estimate.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry will testify before the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee next week on his agency’s fiscal 2020 budget request.
Perry is the only witness scheduled to appear before the panel at 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday at Rayburn House Office Building Room 2362-B in Washington, D.C. The subcommittee is led by Chairman Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Ranking Member Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).
The Energy Department has requested $31.7 billion in total for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, well under the current $35.5 billion appropriation.
Of that, nearly $6.5 billion is planned for the Office of Environmental Management – a roughly $700 million decrease from this year’s $7.2 billion congressional appropriation for nuclear cleanup. The Energy Department also wants $116 million for its Yucca Mountain and Interim Storage Program; Congress last year gave it nothing.
The department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is seeking $16.5 billion for 2020, an increase of over 8 percent from its 2019 appropriation of more than $15 billion.
Perry and NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty are scheduled to testify next Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The hearing, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building room SD-G50, will address “the Department of Energy’s atomic energy defense programs in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2020 and the Future Years Defense Program.”
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is accepting public input on its technical review of a requested license amendment allowing for disposal of 1 million cubic yards of soil waste at the Church Rock uranium mine cleanup site in northwest New Mexico.
General Electric subsidiary United Nuclear Corp. in September 2018 submitted an amendment request for its remediation project near the city of Gallup and the Navajo Nation Reservation. The NRC in January began the technical review, including preparing an environmental impact statement on the proposed disposal plan and other options.
The Northeast Church Rock Mine extracted uranium in the region from 1967 to 1982. It is now a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup site.
United Nuclear Corp. wants to relocate non-contaminated “mine spoils” from the mine to a disposal facility at the close-by Church Rock uranium mill property. The mill, which for five years ending in 1982 processed the extracted uranium, is regulated jointly by the NRC and EPA.
“This amendment, if granted, would allow the construction of a Repository for mine impacted soil and debris on and around the licensed mill tailings disposal area,” according to a March 13 NRC notice in the Federal Register. “Mine waste would be removed from the Northeast Church Rock Mine Site and placed in the Repository, located on the existing tailings disposal area.”
The NRC does not regulate the mine spoils, but rather is evaluating the potential effects of placing that material over mill tailings, granular waste from milling that is under its jurisdiction, a spokesperson said Thursday. The agency will issue both a safety evaluation report and environmental impact statement for the license amendment.
Would-be intervenors have until May 13 to file a petition for a hearing with the nuclear industry regulator. Per federal regulations, the document must make the case for the organization’s standing to intervene. That would include: the petitioner’s name, address, and telephone number; “the nature of the petitioner’s right … to be made a party to the proceeding”; details of property, financial, or other interests in the proceeding, along with how they might be impacted by the NRC decision on the United Nuclear Corp. request.
Petitioners must also cite technical contentions they would raise if authorized to intervene in the proceeding.
More general comments on the scope of the environmental impact statement are being accepted through April 19, via www.regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2019-0026; by email at [email protected]; or by mail to Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN-7-A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff.
The NRC review is expected to extend into 2022. Remediation construction is expected to take four years, the EPA said in December. United Nuclear Corp. would deposit the spoils on top of the existing tails. An engineered barrier would separate the mill tailings and mine spoils, and a cover would be added as defense against the environment.
The waste relocation is one part of the major cleanup work being conducted at the site. The other involves ongoing monitoring, containment, and removal of contaminated groundwater.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week it plans to conduct 10 public meetings around the nation to assist in preparing a congressionally mandated report on best practices for formation of local community panels near decommissioning nuclear power plants.
Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-Wy.) Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, signed into law in January, gives the NRC until June 2020 to provide Congress with “a report identifying best practices with respect to the establishment and operation of a local community advisory board to foster communication and information exchange between a licensee planning for and involved in decommissioning activities and members of the community that decommissioning activities may affect, including lessons learned from any such board in existence before the date of enactment of this Act.”
Topics to be covered in the report are to include: the makeup of a community advisory board; best practices on forming the board, picking its members, and scheduling meetings; and subjects that could be raised before a board, and how its input could inform stakeholder decision-making on decommissioning operations.
In a press release, the NRC said past practices at existing boards would inform its findings in the report. An agency spokesman pointed specifically to the community engagement panel for Southern California Edison’s retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County, Calif.
“In developing a best practices report … the NRC plans to consult with host states, communities within the emergency planning zone of a nuclear power reactor, and existing local community advisory boards,” the release says. “This consultation also includes a minimum of 10 public meetings in locations that ensure geographic diversity across the United States, with priority given to states that have a nuclear power reactor currently undergoing the decommissioning process and request a public meeting under this provision of NEIMA.”
Comments on meeting locations are being accepted through April 17, via regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2019-0073; and by mail, to Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN–7– A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555– 0001, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff.
The meeting schedule is anticipated to be released in July, and the sessions conducted from that month to September, an NRC spokesman said Thursday.
From The Wires
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Federal and state agencies express concerns about the reorganization of FirstEnergy Solutions under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
From The Detroit News: US Ecology faces some local opposition in request to increase disposal capacity at Michigan waste facility.
From Energy Live News: New nuclear cleanup facility completed at Sellafield site in the United Kingdom.
