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Crews start work at historic landfill

08.31.2009

RICHLAND, Wash.—Washington Closure Hanford has awarded a contract worth up to $275,000 to Brian F. Smith and Associates of San Diego to provide historical and archeological support during cleanup of one waste site with an option for a second. The sites are located near the former town of Hanford on the U.S. Department of Energy’s 586-square-mile Hanford Site in southcentral Washington state.

The 600-109 and 600-202 landfills were used for domestic refuse during construction of the Hanford Site and are not expected to contain radioactive materials. However, they contain hazardous material, such as boiler fuel, which was used to help burn the contents of the landfills during their operation. Both sites were the sanitary landfills used by the Manhattan Project construction workers and their families.

Brian F. Smith and Associates will be looking for any materials – bottles, jars, food bones, personal items – that might yield information about the social history of the workers who built the Hanford Site in 1943-1945. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of the Interior determined 600-202 to be “eligible for listing” on the National Register of Historic Places because of its association with the Manhattan Project. The 600-109 Site is being considered for eligibility for similar reasons.“We have to clean up the sites because they contain hazardous materials,” said Tom Marceau, Cultural Resources Supervisor for Washington Closure. “We have to take steps to document what’s at the sites before we clean them up.”

As part of the historical research effort, the Washington Closure cultural resources staff is collecting oral histories about what life was like at the Hanford Construction Camp. Those interested in contributing information may contact Amy Hood at (509) 948-4540 or e-mail her at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

“Information collected from the waste sites and oral histories will be used to construct a social history of Hanford workers,” said Marceau.

Dean Strom, Washington Closure project manager for cleanup of the two sites, said that when they clean up a site, their goal is to keep workers as far away from the waste as possible. “However, if we had chosen a standard archeological approach, we would have had to put people right in the middle of the waste,” said Strom.

”Marceau added that because of the potential risks, this will be different than a typical archeological dig where workers excavate with brushes and trowels while in the trenches. “We’ll lift material out of the waste sites with mechanical excavators about one foot at a time along a trench about three feet wide and 90 feet long,” he said.

After an initial safety check using field instruments and a visual inspection for any anomalous materials, the archaeologists will remove any items of interest and sift about 10 percent of the material through a 1⁄4-inch-mesh screen to catch smaller artifacts.

Strom said there were several factors which led them to use this approach. “For us to place the archaeologists in the trenches they would have had to wear the highest level of protective clothing, including supplied air respirators. Add to that the stress of working in eastern Washington’s 100-plus-degree summertime temperatures, along with the risk of excavating by hand in a hazardous waste site that contains mostly broken glass, and it would have added up to a safety nightmare,” he said.

Once the archeologists complete their work, which should take about three months, typical environmental remediation approaches will be used to complete site cleanup. Work at both sites, including backfill and revegetation is scheduled to be done by March 2012.

Brian F. Smith and Associates was one of four companies to bid on the work. Washington Closure expects to award a separate subcontract for the environmental remediation portion of the work in September.

Washington Closure manages the $2.2 billion River Corridor Closure Project for DOE’s Richland Operations Office. The company is responsible for cleaning up 370 waste sites, demolishing 486 buildings, placing three reactor facilities in interim safe storage and managing the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.