4 research outputs found
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Demolitions of the Savannah River Site's Concentrator and Finishing Facilities
The Savannah River Site (SRS) has produced Special Nuclear Materials (SNMs) starting in the early 1950's to the mid 1970's for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and from the mid 1970's to the present for the Department of Energy (DOE). In that time, over 1,000 facilities have been built in the sixteen (16) operational areas of the eight hundred (800) square kilometer site. Over the years, many of the facilities have been dispositioned by the DOE as inactive. In FY-03, DOE identified two hundred and forty-seven (247) (inactive or soon to be inactive) facilities that required demolition. Demolition work was scheduled to start in FY-04 and be completed in the first quarter of FY-07. Two-hundred and thirty-nine (239) of these facilities have been demolished employing Routine demolition techniques. This presentation reviews and discusses two (2) of the eight (8) Non-Routine demolitions Facilities, 420-D ''The Concentrator Facility'', and 421-D ''The Finishing Facility''
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Decommissioning the Physics Laboratory, Building 777-10a, at the Savannah River Site (Srs)
SRS recently completed a four-year mission to decommission {approx}250 excess facilities. As part of that effort, SRS decommissioned a 48,000 ft{sup 2} laboratory that housed four low-power test reactors, formerly used by SRS to determine reactor physics. This paper describes and reviews the decommissioning, with a focus on component segmentation and handling (i.e. hazardous material removal, demolition, and waste handling). The paper is intended to be a resource for engineers, planners, and project managers who face similar decommissioning challenges
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Facility Deactivation and Decommissioning at the Savannah River Site
In February 2002, the U.S. Department of Energy initiated actions to expedite Cleanup, focus on significant and early risk reduction, and reduce costs at the Savannah River Site (SRS). In response SRS started on a project focused on completing the decommissioning of inactive facilities in T, D, and M Areas, areas that on the perimeter of the Site, by the end of 2006. In June 2003, the Department of Energy Savannah River Operations Office (DOE-SR), the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC), and the Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4 (EPA-4) endorsed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) concerning cleanup at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The vision of the Agreement is that SRS will reduce its operations footprint to establish a buffer zone at the perimeter if the Site, while the central core area of the Site will be reserved for continuing or future long-term operations. DOE-SR, EPA-4, and SCDHEC agreed that establishing this buffer zone and appropriately sequencing environmental restoration and decommissioning activities can lead to greater efficiency and accelerate completion of entire site areas. This vision is embodied in the concept of Area Completion--which integrated operations, deactivation and decommissioning (D&D), and soils and groundwater cleanup into a time-phased approach to completing all the work necessary to address the Cold War legacy. D&D addresses the ''footprint'' of the building or structure, while the soils and groundwater project addresses any environmental remediation that may be required in the underlying and surrounding soils and groundwater. Since then, {approx}250 facilities have been decommissioned at the SRS, ranging from guard stations to nuclear fuel production facilities
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The Cold and Dark Process at the Savannah River Site
The deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) of a facility exposes D&D workers to numerous hazards. One of the more serious hazards is coming into contact to hazardous energy sources (e.g. electrical, pressurized steam). At the Savannah River Site (SRS) a formal process for identifying and eliminating sources of hazardous energy was developed and is called ''Cold & Dark''. Several ''near miss'' events involving cutting of energized conductors during D&D work in buildings thought to be isolated identified the need to have a formal process to identify and isolate these potentially hazardous systems. This process was developed using lessons learned from D&D activities at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (Rocky Flats) in Colorado. The Cold & Dark process defines an isolation boundary (usually a building perimeter) and then systematically identifies all of the penetrations through this boundary. All penetrations that involve hazardous energy sources are then physically air-gapped. The final product is a documented declaration of isolation performed by a team involving operations, engineering, and project management. Once the Cold & Dark declaration is made for a building work can proceed without the usual controls used in an operational facility (e.g. lockout/tagout, arc flash PPE). It is important to note that the Cold & Dark process does not remove all hazards from a facility. Work planning and controls still need to address hazards that can be present from such things as chemicals, radiological contamination, residual liquids, etc., as well as standard industrial hazards