VIDEO: Idaho Crews Level Largest Building on Cold War Landfill

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) crews have demolished one of the biggest buildings at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site, and two more structures are set to come down before the year's end.

The steel-framed, soft-sided building, called Accelerated Retrieval Project (ARP) VIII, was more than 3 acres in size. It served as the enclosure for targeted buried waste retrieval from two pits within a 97-acre Cold War-era landfill known as the Subsurface Disposal Area. EM crews began the dig within a 1.72-acre area in 2014 and completed the waste exhumation mission in 2022.

Decontamination and demolition (D&D) crews with EM cleanup contractor Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC) had prepared for the teardown for months by removing internal equipment and inner fabrics. They performed decontamination activities to allow for a safe demolition, covered the exhumation footprint with clean soil and removed the facility ventilation system.

Final steps in the project included removing the enclosure's exterior skin and weakening the building's support structures. Large bulldozers pulled the skeletal frame over, and workers later applied clean cover material to the former site.

Crews are now focusing their efforts on the final two buildings over the landfill - ARPs VII and IX.

At ARP VII, workers exhumed targeted buried wastes from the landfill. Following that exhumation mission, the facility was permitted under the U.S. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for use to reduce the size of waste boxes from Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapon production plant near Denver, Colorado, as well as contaminated gloveboxes from the Mound Site in Miamisburg, Ohio, a former nuclear weapons research facility. Later, crews at ARP VII treated and repackaged sludge waste that originated at Rocky Flats.

Before workers exhumed waste at ARP IX, the building was used to condition a uranium-bearing waste - called roaster oxides - to facilitate offsite disposition.

The two remaining buildings will be demolished with similar methods as the previous ARPs.

Eventually, an engineered cover containing native rocks and soils will be constructed over the entire landfill to reduce water movement through the remaining waste and protect the underlying Snake River Plain Aquifer.

The landfill accepted INL Site-generated radioactive and hazardous wastes beginning in 1952 and from Rocky Flats and other generators from 1954 to 1970. In 2008, EM, the state of Idaho and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to exhume targeted radioactive and hazardous waste from nine areas covering a total of 5.69 acres. The exhumation project was completed 18 months early.

"I could not be prouder of the accomplishments of the ARP decommissioning team," said ARP Project Director Jason Chapple. "This work was completed, first and foremost, safely. It was also completed ahead of schedule and under budget. Just a few short years ago, the ARP mission was exhumation and packaging waste, and the team seamlessly and safely transitioned to a D&D mission. It's a testament to the focused and dedicated workforce at the ARP."

-Contributor: Erik Simpson