To residents, cleanup at a Parks Township nuclear waste dump will look like a few trucks leaving the site every week, said Nicholas Melina, commander of the Pittsburgh District of the Army Corps of Engineers.
Behind the site’s electric fence, 10 trenches containing about 33,000 cubic yards of materials will be excavated over the next six to eight years. Materials found will be identified, packaged and sent to radioactive waste disposal facilities.
Soil removed from the site will go in tamper-resistant fabric bags loaded into impact-resistant shipping containers that Melina called “pretty much unbreakable.”
Nuclear materials will be processed similarly, but may need to be packaged in different containers, Project Manager Steven Vriesen said.
Most of the materials will be sent by train to commercial processing facility EnergySolutions in Utah.
“If we do encounter materials that aren’t suitable for disposal at a commercial disposal facility like the one in Utah, then we would turn to our federal partners and rely on them to assist us with disposing of that material at, say, a government disposal facility,” Melina said.
The workflow and timeline could change depending on safety requirements and what materials are found, Vriesen said.
Excavation started April 7, two decades after Congress added the site, formerly known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area, to a list of nuclear waste dumps needing remediation.
The project is expected to cost more than $500 million.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC), the 44-acre site’s original owner, buried waste enriched uranium and other harmful materials from production of fuel for the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines, along with fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.
The company also allegedly buried tools, machines and other items contaminated with radioactive materials.
The site originally was adjacent to a now-demolished plutonium processing facility NUMEC operated in addition to the uranium processing facility it operated nearby in Apollo. Both sites were sold first to the Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO), then to Babcock & Wilcox, which became BWX Technologies, the property’s current owner.
Cautious start
Crews will start by slowly excavating 6 inches of soil at a time, starting with Trench 8.
Once the top layer is removed, they will install shoring, or temporary stabilization structures, to support the trench walls.
“The process is very deliberate,” Melina said.”Really, it’s almost more like an archaeological dig.”
Because the trenches are all different sizes, remediation timelines for each vary, Vriesen said.
Trench 8 is estimated to take about two and a half months.
Buildings above the trenches are intended to block weather conditions, allowing the crews to work year-round, Vriesen said.
After remediation, the site will be turned back over to BWX and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“When we’re done, you won’t even know that we were there — that’s the ultimate goal,” Melina said. “We’re removing that material from the environment, and when we leave, it’ll look like we were never there.”
Safety and testing
In 2011, excavation started at the site but was stopped after a contractor allegedly mishandled some nuclear materials. At the time, greater amounts of complex nuclear materials were found than what was expected.
The Army Corps then switched contractors, opting in 2019 to go with Tennessee-based Amentum, formerly Jacobs Technology.
Since the 2011 incident, Vriesen said, more characterization equipment was used to determine what materials are in the trenches “to make sure that what happened back then cannot happen going forward.”
“That’s why it’s taken us as long as it has since 2011 to be ready now to start again,” Vriesen said.
Carol Vernon, an Army Corps spokesperson, said the “lessons learned” from 2011 are informing the remediation work now.
So far, this round of excavation hasn’t turned up any nuclear materials, Vriesen said.
“We’re pretty much expecting anything — a lot of debris, lab equipment, building, demolition materials that came from the old Apollo facility. There are drums in some of the trenches that are filled with various items,” said Vriesen.
The facility has nine air monitoring systems, including ones by the site’s perimeter.
Twice a year, groundwater is tested to make sure waste isn’t migrating from the site, Vriesen said. So far, testing shows no evidence any nuclear materials have made it off the site.
Any water found in or around the trenches is tested and treated at an onsite wastewater plant, Melina said.
Vriesen said they already have coordinated how to inform local first responders and state and county agencies in the case of any incidents that could affect public health or safety.
In October, the Army Corps held a practice emergency drill at the site that involved local first responders and demonstrated the processes that would be used in the event of a problem or injury at the site.
The current round of remediation had been expected to start this past winter, but was delayed.
Melina said the delay wasn’t because of a specific safety concern but was to ensure nothing was being rushed and that, because the project isn’t tied to a set end date, it will go at a pace that ensures safety.
“The team is really committed to delivering, and it’s important to us. We know how important this is to the community, and we’re going to get it right,” Melina said.
Coming up
On May 6, the public is invited to an information session at 6 p.m. at the Parks Township Fire Hall, where officials will give an update on the project and take questions.