Cleanup of Parks Township nuclear waste dump to begin next summer, Army Corps details the plan

The Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors are less than a year out from starting to remove, process and package radioactive materials from the Parks Township nuclear waste dump.

Remediation will start in August on 10 shallow trenches of highly enriched uranium and other hazardous materials buried at the 44-acre site in the township’s Kiskimere section.

Until then, much work remains to prepare the second, repeatedly delayed attempt at cleaning up what federal agencies call the Shallow Land Disposal Area. The Corps stopped digging at the site in 2011 after it found evidence of severe safety violations by its contractor at the time. The first try was anticipated to cost $176 million.

This time around will be a lot more expensive.

Funding had yet to be fully secured, according to Steve Vriesen, a project manager with the Corps, for all $435 million of the remediation contract with Jacobs Technology. Contract bids will go out soon for a supplemental deal of between $250 million and $500 million.

“We expect to get all of the funding for our needs for this current year,” he said.

Beyond that depends on how much Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) funding comes from Congress, but Vriesen believes the chance of financial trouble pausing work is “very low.”

Corps leaders gave additional details to more than 50 community members Thursday night at an information session at the Parks Township fire hall, building on years of public outreach.

The waste’s journey

Each trench is filled with radioactive waste from a defunct Apollo company that produced nuclear fuel for submarines, power plants and other uses.

The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) had facilities in Apollo and Parks Township from about 1960 to the early 1970s.

The Corps is in charge of the clean up and will return the site to current owner BWX Technologies once the project is complete.

Officials say work will take about six years, followed by a few years of close out.

Remediation will start in two excavation buildings. The first building will cover trenches 4 through 8. The second building will cover trench 1. Trenches 2, 3 and 9 will be remediated after, but won’t be covered, because the Corps expects to complete them in a single season. Trench 10 will be handled last and could require its own structure.

From there, the materials will be sent to a processing building for X-rays and other testing.

In the waste management building, crews will ready soft-sided containers for their journey to a facility in Wampum, about 60 miles northwest of Parks Township. These packages will then be transported by rail to Utah for permanent disposal.

An onsite laboratory has already been built, and the other facilities are well on their way. Infrastructure installation is expected to wrap up by July.

During remediation, the Corps anticipates up to 12 waste shipments per week — three trucks making two shipments per day, two days per week.

The trucks will go through Leechburg, then take Route 56, Route 356, Route 28 and finally the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Wampum.

Ensuring full remediation

Corps officials told community members they won’t leave the site until the waste is removed, radioactivity has receded to background levels and all processing structures are taken down.

As explained by Gerald Rood, a health physicist with the Corps, low levels of radiation exist in most environments, including a “very non-disturbed” section of Gilpin/Leechburg Park that’s been tested as a control for the Parks Township site. That is, the Corps won’t consider their job done until the former dump is indistinguishable on a Geiger counter from the park.

Contaminated water and dust making it off-site was a concern repeatedly raised by residents, including Pamela Booker of Parks Township.

“How can you guarantee that pile of dirt does not contaminate?” she asked about a heap near her home.

Nick Melin, commander of the Corps’ Pittsburgh District, assured her any dirt disturbed during the construction phase is nowhere close to the radioactive trenches. During remediation, per Vriesen, mists will be used to damp down airborne particles.

As for wastewater, that will be treated at an onsite facility. Elizabeth Anderson, an engineer with government contractor Amentum, said crews will add chemicals to the water, remove metals and send it through several filters before discharging it into the Kiski River.

Since monitoring began in 2003, the Corps has not found any signs of groundwater contaminants migrating from the site, nor has air quality testing indicated the release of hazardous particles beyond federal standards. Testing will continue throughout the project.

Emergency preparedness

Worst-case scenarios, like a spill during transportation, also were on the minds of community members. Exact plans are still in the works on how to address these issues, according to Melin, but the start of remediation is conditional on them being in place.

An operational assessment will test all facilities to ensure compliance with environmental rules, and training exercises with federal and local emergency services will take place “before we even take a shovel full of anything out of anywhere,” he added.

“We’re developing that right now as we speak and rehearsing it, and we’re going to lay it all out to you at our next public meeting,” he said.