West Valley Ships Eight Large Legacy Waste Containers for Disposal

Workers at the West Valley Demonstration Project use a large crane to load one of eight containers of legacy waste into an engineered overpack for safe shipment to an offsite disposal facility.

WEST VALLEY, N.Y. - Crews with the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) recently met a fiscal year goal at the West Valley Demonstration Project by shipping eight containers of legacy waste each weighing up to 94,000 pounds for offsite disposal.

The effort by EM and cleanup contractor CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) involved comprehensive planning, engineered safeguards, continuous communication and teamwork.

"The West Valley Demonstration Project team continues to use planning, teamwork and deliberate execution to complete challenging work safely," said Stephen Bousquet, EM West Valley assistant director of Project Management. "By removing legacy wastes, we continue to position the site for future cleanup activities."

Workers used a large crane to pick up and lower each container into an engineered overpack, which serves as a secondary layer of protection. They loaded the overpack containers onto trailers and transported them by truck to a local rail transload facility. There, the shipment was securely loaded onto rail cars for transportation to an approved disposal facility in Texas.

The legacy waste was removed from the former Fuel Receiving and Storage Facility. The building was used from 1965 to 1972 to receive and store spent nuclear fuel before it was reprocessed to recover reusable plutonium and uranium.

"Our team members continue to use their combined knowledge to safely and deliberately complete high risk work activities," CHBWV Waste and Site Operations Manager Peggy Loop said. "I'm proud of their efforts, accomplishments and work they continue to do on this project."

This latest achievement joins a list of fiscal year goals EM crews have completed at West Valley, including the removal of old locker rooms and the original guardhouse, installation of new walkways, construction of a new access roadway between the north and south parking lots, and collection of a sample in an underground tank that stored high-level liquid waste from spent fuel reprocessing operations.

-Contributor: Joseph Pillittere