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$5.3 million cleanup contract awarded to local companies

12.14.2010

RICHLAND, Wash.—Washington Closure Hanford has awarded a subcontract worth up to $5.3 million to Sage Tec in a competitive process involving five companies. Sage Tec and its  teaming partner, Federal Engineers and Constructors, are located in Richland.

The subcontract is to clean up a chromium-contaminated waste site near Hanford’s C Reactor. Chromium is a known hazardous material, toxic to young salmon and mobile in the environment. The site is located less than a mile from the Columbia River.

Chromium was used as an anti-corrosion agent in the piping of Hanford’s nine nuclear reactors that produced plutonium during World War II and the Cold War years. C Reactor operated from 1952-69. During that time, chromium stored at the site may have spilled and may be the source of the contamination.

“What makes this cleanup project more challenging than previous waste site cleanup efforts is the depth workers may have to dig and the amount of clean soil that will need to be removed to get to the chromium source and remove the contaminated soil,” said Dean Strom, Washington Closure project manager overseeing the work.

Strom said about 500,000 tons of soil is expected to be contaminated. “We consulted with mining engineers to ensure that we could safely excavate a hole 85 feet deep and get heavy equipment into and out of it. It has to be sloped to prevent cave-ins and it has to include roads for vehicle access.”

The resulting excavation will cover an enormous area, as will the material removed from the hole. The footprint of the opening on the surface will cover an area the size of about 15 football fields.

The chromium contaminated soil will be disposed onsite at the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, Hanford’s landfill for low-level, radioactive and hazardous cleanup waste. An unknown amount will require treatment before being disposed.

Excavation will begin in January 2011 and take about six months to complete. Loadout, transportation and disposal in ERDF will begin in February and take about one year.

Washington Closure manages the $2.4 billion River Corridor Closure Project – the largest environmental cleanup closure project in the United States – at the U.S. Department of Energy’s 586-square-mile Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state.

The company is responsible for cleaning up 396 waste sites, demolishing 486 buildings, placing two reactors and one nuclear facility in interim safe storage and managing the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.

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