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Small business awarded hazardous waste removal subcontract

03.13.2007

RICHLAND, Wash.—An $8.8 million subcontract to remove asbestos and other hazardous materials from five buildings in Hanford’s N Area has been awarded by Washington Closure Hanford to NCES-PAS JV, a small business based in Vancouver, Wash.

NCES-PAS is a joint venture between NetCompliance Environmental Services and Performance Abatement Services.

NCES-PAS will remove asbestos and other hazardous materials, such as oils, refrigerants, hydraulic fluids, lead shielding, light ballasts, etc., from three buildings to prepare them for demolition and two buildings to prepare them for interim safe storage.

Asbestos and hazardous material abatement work is expected to start in April and will be completed in mid-2008. Most materials removed from the buildings will be shipped to Hanford’s Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility for disposal.

NCES-PAS will start work on the heat exchanger building, followed by the reactor building in October.

Washington Closure will award a subcontract in 2008 to demolish the three smaller buildings and place in interim safe storage – or cocoon – N Reactor and the heat exchanger building.

Cocooning is the process used on five other Hanford reactors to isolate their radioactive cores from the environment and significantly reducing the cost of long-term maintenance and surveillance.

With cocooning, the building is demolished down to the thick concrete shield walls that surround the reactor core. All openings are sealed and a new roof placed over the facility. Heat and moisture sensors are installed to allow remote monitoring of the facility. Workers open the buildings every five years to conduct visual inspections and perform any necessary maintenance.

The facilities will remain in this condition for up to 75 years to allow radiation levels inside the reactor to decay and to give DOE and the regulators time to develop final disposal options.

N Reactor was the only one of the nine Hanford plutonium production reactors to have heat exchangers and steam generators used to produce steam for electricity. The steam generator building also will be cocooned.

Hanford’s C, D, DR, F and H reactors have already been cocooned. Cocooning of N Reactor should be completed by 2011. KE and KW reactors also are scheduled to be done by 2011. B Reactor, the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor is being evaluated by the National Park Service as a possible museum.

Washington Closure has a commitment to award 65 percent of all subcontracts to small businesses. Since contract inception in August 2005, the company has awarded over $90 million in work to small business, or about 85 percent of total subcontracts awarded.