Problems continue to plague the Savannah River Site, according to the most recent Defense Facilities Board weekly report. These reports are among the few sources of independent information available to the public.
This week’s report describes a drill to prepare the huge H-Canyon for an earthquake. The Savannah River Site and its legacy of high-level radioactive waste are on one of the most significant earthquake faults in the United States. The Saltstone incident at the bottom of the report is serious because Saltstone is DOE’s solution to remediate low-level liquid radioactive waste from the very dangerous 49 storage tanks connecting to H-Canyon.
Problems continue to plague the Savannah River Site, according to the most recent Defense Facilities Board weekly report. These reports are among the few sources of independent information available to the public.
This week’s report describes a drill to prepare the huge H-Canyon for an earthquake. The Savannah River Site and its legacy of high-level radioactive waste are on one of the most significant earthquake faults in the United States. The Saltstone incident at the bottom of the report is serious because Saltstone is DOE’s solution to remediate low-level liquid radioactive waste from the very dangerous 49 storage tanks connecting to H-Canyon.
DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD
September 10, 2010
TO: T. J. Dwyer, Technical Director
FROM: M. T. Sautman and D. L. Burnfield, Site Representatives
SUBJECT: Savannah River Site Weekly Report for Week Ending September 10, 2010
DOE SR: The Department of Energy named Dr. David Moody as the new manager of the Savannah River Operations Office.
H-Canyon: SRNS [DOE contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions] is conducting a Facility Self Assessment (FSA) in order to prepare for their upcoming Readiness Assessment. One of the purposes of the FSA is to identify issues that need to be fixed prior to declaring readiness. For example, H-Canyon staff did not control the initial drills well and operators took a relatively long time to complete the first vessel seismic purges. Both improved during the FSA. When the cask car arrived at H-Canyon, the train engine was pulling it (versus pushing it) and the cask car was orientated the wrong way. The railroad tunnel shield door broke and needed repairs. Somebody used a prohibited degreaser on the cask car deck and workers had to clean up the residue. Crane operators did a better job unloading a dummy fuel bundle and inserting it into the charging dissolver mockup.
Emergency Planning: The site rep met with Solid Waste Management Facility (SWMF) and Emergency Preparedness staff to discuss their lessons learned from the Pad 16 contamination event (see 7/30 and 8/6 weekly reports). While SRNS understands the issues that they need to address, they have not developed the implementation details, revised procedures, and related training yet. To improve future recovery times, a group of workers will maintain plastic suit qualifications and key equipment (e.g., portable ventilation units, fixatives) will be stored at SWMF. That being said, it could still take 1 to 1-1/2 shifts before plastic suits and breathing air compressors might be available to SWMF responders. SRNS also needs to revise their emergency procedures to 1) clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the fire department and radiological protection staff for various types of events and 2) ensure the initial response reflects the known hazards of the affected containers. SRNS plans to make their drill scenarios reflect the increasing hazards due to higher plutonium-content drums that may contain liquids.
H-Tank Farm has not conducted a formal seismic drill or deployed their portable ventilation systems in years (6/18/10 report). SRR [DOE contractor Savannah River Remediation] began conducting training drills so that each maintenance crew would assemble and install the emergency portable ventilation system into a mocked up tank riser. For some workers, this is the first time they have performed this task. The site rep observed workers perform this for a simulated loss of ventilation to Tank 48. Field deployment of equipment identified that the filter housing condensate drain hose was too short and had the wrong fitting.
Addressing another concern (6/18/10 report), nearby construction contractors will begin to participate in future F-Area drills. Drills at 235-F will resume later this month.
Saltstone: SRR is recovering from the process upset that occurred on August 21, 2010. They have cleaned the grout hopper and have nearly completed fabrication of the piping that needs to be replaced. The slide gate between the premix weigh hopper and screw feeders is in the process of being replaced. SRR is preparing for an independent corporate review and is finalizing the management self-assessment corrective actions. The restart of Saltstone is dependent on the completion of these corrective actions.
