Prep work for Parks Township nuclear waste cleanup about halfway done, officials say

New buildings are popping up at a Parks Township nuclear waste dump site as the Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors continue preparations to remove radioactive material there in a project that is expected to cost over a half-billion dollars.

Steve Vriesen, a project manager with the Army Corps, said crews are about halfway done constructing facilities to excavate, test, process and ship out 10 trenches worth of waste from the 44-acre site, known by federal agencies as the Shallow Land Disposal Area.

“Each one has a specific purpose,” he explained of the buildings.

Two excavation buildings are being erected. No. 1 will cover trenches four through eight, and No. 2 will cover trench one. Trenches two, three and nine will be remediated once the aforementioned areas are completed but will not require their own building.

Trench 10 will be handled last and could involve a dedicated structure, according to Vriesen.

From there, the materials will be sent to a processing building for additional testing, such as X-rays.

The last stop in the complex is the waste management building, where crews will prepare waste containers for their journey to a facility in Wampum, Lawrence County. They then will be taken by rail to a permanent disposal site in Utah.

Each container will be decontaminated and scanned for radioactivity before shipping out.

How long these steps take will depend on the required level of testing and processing.

“Generally speaking, it’ll be in the order of a week to several weeks to go through that entire process,” Vriesen said.

Crews also are constructing a small onsite lab to analyze waste and water samples. Vriesen said that will be a big time saver compared to using an external facility. Photos posted online by the Army Corps earlier this month show workers installing roof exhaust units and lightning protection measures there.

Work on a decontamination facility is in the early stages. Anyone who enters the exclusion zone must remove their protective equipment and shower before leaving.

Finally, there are some administrative trailers, which were added last year.

Tennessee-based Jacobs Technology and a host of subcontractors are handling preparation and remediation with support from the Army Corps.

Waste removal is expected to start next summer.

From about 1960 to the early 1970s, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) buried radioactive waste at the site. The former Babcock & Wilcox, now known as BWX Technologies, bought the site in 1971.

The Army Corps expects remediation to take until 2032 and cost well over a half-billion dollars.

Officials are seeking a supplemental contract between $250 million and $500 million, on top of an existing $350 million agreement, for the project. Funding is expected to be finalized late next year.

In the meantime, spokeswoman Carol Vernon said the Army Corps is redoubling its outreach efforts after a survey sent out this summer by Leechburg native Ariana Scott, a University of Pittsburgh master’s degree candidate, found a startling lack of awareness about the project.

Vernon said the Army Corps will continue its semiannual public information sessions at the Parks Township fire hall, with the next one set for 6:30 p.m. Nov. 7.

It also is hosting an informal outdoor session from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 25 at Wayne A. Teeple Park in Vandergrift.

“Everything for us is about communicating with those communities and making sure they have a clear understanding of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it,” Vernon said.

This is the second attempt to clean up the site.

In 2011, the Corps stopped digging at the site, saying its contractor at the time committed a “severe” violation of safety protocols. In September 2011, an incident occurred that showed the contractor at the time was not scanning material in the trenches before removing it to a building for analysis, according to Corps officials at the time.

The contract for cleanup was suspended, and the Corps began more thorough planning to ensure future contractors were better equipped to handle any material that might be found in the trenches. That work resulted in the current plan to remove radioactive material from the site.

At the time the project was stopped, officials expected it to cost $176 million.