WEST VALLEY — Demolition of the Load-In Facility at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), the last ancillary support structure that surrounds the Main Plant Process Building, was recently completed.
This recent demolition brings the Department of Energy’s total number of structures removed at West Valley to 69.
DOE WVDP Director Bryan Bower commended the team for its work.
“The work of our team of dedicated employees continues to ready the site for the future demolition of the Main Plant Process Building, while reducing legacy risks at the site,” he said.
The 4,500-square-foot, two-level building, which had been used for several purposes over the years, is no longer needed for EM’s cleanup. It is set to join the list of Main Plant ancillary structures already torn down, helping shrink the site’s cleanup footprint. Those six support structures were used for everything from reducing the size of waste for disposal to providing space for offices, utilities and laundry services.
Using a heavy-duty excavator with shear attachment, demolition debris was size-reduced and loaded into 32-cubic yard waste containers, known as intermodals. The demolition generated a total of 43 waste containers of debris, each weighing an average of 21,000 pounds. This amounts to 903,000 pounds of debris, equal to more than 200 automobiles.
The Load-In Facility was first used to store and inspect empty stainless-steel canisters before they were filled with high-level liquid waste that had been solidified into glass through a process known as vitrification.
The building was later used to support the relocation of the canisters from the Main Plant to an onsite storage area. Those canisters are scheduled to remain there until they can be disposed of in an approved facility.
The Load-In Facility had also served as a location to stage equipment for the decontamination and demolition of the site’s Vitrification Facility, whose take-down in 2018 represents the largest and most complex demolition of a radioactively contaminated facility at the site to date. The Main Plant demolition would take over that record.
John Rendall, president of CHBWV, said employees used their combined knowledge and lessons learned to safely complete this demolition.
“The CHBWV team continues to make great progress in our cleanup efforts, while performing work in a safe and environmentally-sound manner,” he said.