Cleanup at INL safely ahead of schedule

INL Civilian Advisory Board

Every week, large 18-wheelers leave the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho carrying canisters of transuranic waste headed for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, known as WIPP. The facility is located in the Chihuahuan Desert outside Carlsbad, N.M.

Transuranic waste is defined as waste containing more than 100 nanocuries of alpha-emitting transuranic isotopes per gram of waste. This waste contains no spent fuel or high-level wastes. It is mainly the byproduct of nuclear weapon research and development. It includes such things as protective clothing, tools, glassware, soils and sludge.

Since October, the U.S. Department of Energy has shipped over 19,000 cubic meters of this highly contaminated, low-level waste out of Idaho and into the New Mexico depository.

This movement of low-level wastes is a major part of the cleanup project being carried out by DOE in the 890-square-mile area known as the Idaho National Laboratory.

Another important part of the cleanup includes the decontamination and demolition of 200 buildings and several former atomic reactors and test facilities.

Buildings that had once housed test nuclear reactors are now just buried foundations or are in the final stages of demolition. A portion of one building that had a large dome was cut in huge sections and hauled by truck to a special landfill designed for contaminated metal scrap. A building still standing housed a nuclear test area known as the "hot shop" has cement walls which are seven feet thick and includes hundreds of feet of steel rebar. This building is scheduled for demolition this fall.

Safety of personnel is considered one of the most important factors in the work being done here. What is amazing about all of the demolition being carried out by DOE contractors is that this work has been accomplished without serious accidents.

One of the things evident in this project is the caliber of personnel working for the contractors. Well-trained supervisors with years of demolition experience are the first to tell you of the capability of the workers on the demolition crews. One pointed out that during the total length of this project, his electrical crews had removed miles of electrical lines, rigged emergency lighting, and cleaned up the electrical systems in the old structures without a single work-loss accident.

Once these buildings are demolished, all that will be left are mounds of dirt, some capped with a covering of asphalt to keep rainwater from leaking through and moving activated waste into the aquifer below. These areas will be left in a natural state and possibly for future use 100 years from now.

A monitoring system will be put in place to assure that nothing will disrupt the buried foundations and contaminated waste.

A large, unique locomotive that had been used to haul materials into the reactor area has been removed and relocate to the historical museum down the road. Only a section of the tracks remains.

The Department of Energy is spending millions of dollars to assure that all these deserted buildings with their potentially dangerous contamination will be safely destroyed and reduced to useable land areas. The DOE and their contractors are ahead of schedule, below budget and are to be congratulated on the important work being done out here in the southeastern Idaho desert.

? Bruce Clinton Wendle is a volunteer of the Civilian Advisory Board serving the Idaho National Laboratory.