EXPERIENCES USING LEVEL A AND B PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT TO REMOVE HIGH-HAZARD RADIOACTIVE AND HAZARDOUS CONSTITUENTS FROM A USDOE MATERIAL STORAGE AREA

This paper describes the successful investigation and recovery of a high-hazard storage site at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) in Paducah, Kentucky. The PGDP is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) production facility for the low-enrichment of uranium-235. Presently, the DOE leases a large portion of the plant to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) for producing commercial reactor-grade uranium. In February 2000, the PGDP waste operations contractor, WESKEM, LLC (WESKEM), and its subcontractors were tasked with remediating a DOE Material Storage Area (DMSA) that harbored numerous containers with unknown contents, including several 30-gallon steel drums suspected of containing fissile materials, high explosives, and toxic metals. Assessing and securing the unknown materials was complicated by the small confines of the DMSA, ongoing USEC operations in the immediate work area, and the co-location of other suspected highly hazardous materials. These included high levels of radioactive contamination and dozens of containers holding reactive chemicals, such as hydrofluoric acid, aqua regia, sodium hydroxide, organic bleach, and a concentrated nitric acid solution of neptunium-237 (Np-237). Overlying these hazards was the potential for any container to include fissionable material and create a nuclear criticality. It was also believed that the DMSA had not been accessed for an extended period of time, creating uncertainty about the integrity of the containers and the stability of their chemical contents. In this paper we recount how PGDP managers and our Entry Team of high-hazard remediation experts utilized an iterative, closed-loop planning process consistent with DOE's Integrated Safety Management System (ISMS) to safely accomplish the assessment and recovery of multiple hazards in this complex DMSA. Our multi-stage assessment and recovery operations, hazard mitigation strategy, including the