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Washington Closure to expand landfill

03.13.2007

RICHLAND, Wash.—Washington Closure Hanford has awarded DelHur Industries of Hermiston, Ore., a subcontract worth up to $20 million to add two disposal cells to the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.

A second contract for $860,000 was awarded in September to Envirotech Engineering & Consulting of Enid, Okla., to provide construction quality assurance services for the expansion work.

Design for the expanded facility is complete and both companies will begin work in March 2008, with construction to be completed in early 2009.

Located in the center of the 586-square-mile Hanford Site, ERDF is an engineered, low- level and mixed waste disposal facility designed to accept soil and debris generated during Hanford cleanup activities.

ERDF comprises six areas, or cells. Each cell is constructed with a bottom liner consisting of multiple layers of plastic, other impermeable materials and a system to catch liquids as they drain through the waste materials.

Built two at a time, the first two cells went into operation in 1996. Each pair of cells is 70 feet deep, 1,000 feet long and 500 feet wide at the base – large enough to hold 2.4 million tons of waste material.

Designed to be expanded as needed, two cells were added to ERDF in 1999 and another two in 2003. When the current expansion is completed, the facility will have an operational capacity of about 11 million tons. At the base, the eight cells will cover the same area as nearly 35 football fields.

For the current expansion, DelHur will excavate 1.3 million cubic yards of soil. They will construct the liner system, as well as liquid collection and removal systems for the new cells, and tie them into the existing cells. Workers also will excavate a construction buffer zone to accommodate future expansion.

As the construction quality assurance subcontractor, Envirotech will provide assurance that the ERDF earthwork and liner and leachate collection systems are installed and tested as designed.

To date, more than seven million tons of contaminated soil and debris have been disposed at ERDF, or 70 percent of the 10 million tons of contaminated material estimated to be located at waste sites and burial grounds near the Columbia River.

Each day, workers at ERDF typically empty an average of 150 containers filled with up to 18 tons of low-level and mixed waste. Radioactive and hazardous materials from waste sites, burial grounds and building demolition in Hanford’s River Corridor comprises most of the materials disposed at ERDF. Waste from other Hanford cleanup operations also is disposed at the facility.

SM Stoller is responsible for daily disposal operations at ERDF under subcontract to Washington Closure, which manages the facility for DOE. Eberline Services Hanford provides radiological control services. Integrated Logistics Services provides waste transportation services.

ERDF subcontractors are classified as small businesses by the Small Business Administration. Washington Closure has awarded more than $65 million, or 90 percent, of its procurements to small, disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses in fiscal year 2007.

The company expects to award an additional subcontractor for construction of cells 9 & 10 before 2013.