Management of Pit 9 - highlights of accomplishments and lessons learned to date
The Pit 9 project is a U.S. Department of Energy prototype full scale demonstration to retrieve and treat buried mixed transuranic waste. The project is being managed by the DOE-Idaho Environmental Restoration Program, in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 and the state of Idaho, under the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Pit 9 is located in the northeast corner of the Subsurface Disposal Area (SDA) of the Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC) at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL). The Pit 9 project was conceived out of the need to determine capabilities to cost effectively retrieve and treat buried radioactive and radioactive mixed waste, and obtain characterization and contaminant migration data for buried waste at the INEL. Waste was disposed in Pit 9 from November 1967 to June 1969. Pit 9, at about 380 feet by 125 feet, represents approximately one acre of surface area of the 88 acre SDA. The pit contains approximately 350,000 ft{sup 3} of soil beneath and between the buried waste and about 250,000 ft{sup 3} of overburden soil. The average depth of the pit from soil surface to bedrock is approximately 17.5 feet. Approximately 110,000 ft{sup 3} of transuranic (TRU) contaminated mixed wastes from Rocky Flats and approximately 40,000 ft{sup 3} of low level and mixed wastes from the INEL were buried in Pit 9 during this period. Pit 9 is estimated to contain over 30,000 gallons of organics (over 30% of the total organic inventory in the SDA) and approximately 66 pounds of TRU radionuclides (between 3% and 4% of the total TRU inventory in the SDA). Pit 9 was selected as a demonstration site because it was one of the last disposal pits at the INEL to receive Rocky Flats waste, disposal records are better for Pit 9 than for disposal pits and trenches from earlier points in time, and the wastes in Pit 9 are representative of the wastes disposed in the SDA.
- Research Organization:
- EG and G Idaho, Inc., Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC07-94ID13223
- OSTI ID:
- 123248
- Report Number(s):
- INEL-95/00233; CONF-950868-24; ON: DE96001931; TRN: 95:024618
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ER `95: environmental remediation conference: committed to results, Denver, CO (United States), 13-18 Aug 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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