Facility Deactivation and Decommissioning at the Savannah River Site

Conference · Tue Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2008

OSTI ID:21144202

Gilmour, John C ^[1]; Belencan, Helen L ^[2]

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1. CH2SRC, Savannah River Site, Aiken, SC 29808 (United States)
2. U.S. Department of Energy, Savannah River Site, Aiken, SC 29808 (United States)

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 are 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 of 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 and D), and soils and groundwater cleanup into a time-phased approach to completing all the work necessary to address the Cold War legacy. D and 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. The efforts made up front to develop the MOA and maintain open and active involvement with the EPA and SCDHEC was instrumental to the success of the SRS D and D Project. Accelerated D and D requires innovative regulatory approaches so that time and resources are spent commensurate with the hazards of the facilities being decommissioned. The graded approach developed at SRS accomplished a balance between building hazards and the amount of regulatory and public involvement.

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, Illinois 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21144202
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
BIOLOGICAL RECOVERY
COST
DEACTIVATION
DECOMMISSIONING
GROUND WATER
HAZARDS
REMEDIAL ACTION
SAVANNAH RIVER
SOUTH CAROLINA
US DOE FIELD OFFICES
US EPA