May 8, 2010
Recycling Smelting Facility Recommended at Portsmouth
Could Open Area to More Industry But Comes with Perils of Nuclear Waste
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Piketon, OH (HNN) – A recommendation that the Department of Energy develop and design a metal smelter that would be suitable to recycle various types of metals into ingots from Decontamination & Decommissioning (D &D) activities at the former uranium plant has been approved by a 13-1 vote. Prior to the vote, various building trade union representatives spoke in favor of the proposed facility a possible job generator both for construction and operation.
The recommendation is an incremental step in the complete D & D of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant which -- along with one in Paducah, KY and Oak Ridge, TN -- performed uranium enrichment operations
According to the DOE website, the dismantling of the three former uranium process buildings are the size of 158 football fields ( about 96 acres) . Since 2005, the Portsmouth facility has operated in cold shutdown mode. The Cold Shutdown project entails equipment deactivation, uranium deposits removal from process equipment, and removal of PCB and lube oils to reduce worker hazards and the amount of wastes during evential D&D.
D & D will result in various types of scrap metals in the debris including steel, old pumps, motors, convertors, and industrial equipment.
One option would be to ship all of the scrap metal to Utah and Nevada. However, the recommendation involves construction of an on-site smelter to reduce and process scrap metals from the debris.
Radioactive uranium contamination would become part of the “dross” during the melting, leaving the majority of metals to be cast as ingots for future use. The uranium “dross” would be sent to low level radioactive disposal cells in the West.
Unfortunately, the preserved recycled scrap metals would have “trace amounts of radioactivity. These recycled metals should only be used under control conditions at DOE sites or possibly in the construction of nuclear reactors and associated equipment at nuclear power plants,” the recommendation states.
Since no other nuclear waste metal smelting facility exists in the United States, the possibility exists for the shipment of debris from other plants to be shipped to the Portsmouth smelting facility.
Mark Johnson, a representative of the Tri-State Building and Trades Council, spoke in favor of the smelting facility possibly “generating further industry” for the Southeastern Ohio area.
Terri Ann Smith, Site Specific Advisory Board member, voted against the recommendation.
“Nothing good can come from recycling this [contaminated] metals,” Smith said, referencing veterans issues from the Gulf War and Iraq War in which depleted uranium has been used for bullets and tanks which exposed soldiers and others to radioactivity.
Representatives of the DOE stated that the recommendation did not address the future uses, only whether to recycle the debris.
However, William Murphie, manager of the Portsmouth/Paducah Project, also manages the Depleated Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Conversion Project, which involves construction of two facilities to convert 700,000 metric tons of DUF6 to a more stable form for reuse and/or disposal.
Vina Colley, resident of (P.R.E.S.S) Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security and Co-Founder of (N.N.W.J.) National Nuclear Workers for Justice, expressed safety concerns for both workers and community members. Recalling previous efforts during the Cold War to recycle nuclear waste, Colley stated, “It seems like we are trying to recycle the past again.”
The Huntington Pilot Plant/Reduction Pilot Plant , which performed some recycling in the 1950s and early 1960s ended up closed and contaminated with uranium and other waste(s). It was eventually demolished and buried in a “classified” land fill at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Geoffrey Sea, Southern Ohio Neighbors Group, warned that the relatively generic recommendation could be twisted at will so that , for instance, an insertion could be made which would allow uranium (and other radioactive ) waste from other locations to be brought to Piketon.
Sea in a Harvard thesis helped blow the whistle on the entombing of the HPP/RPP.
At the time of the burial, workers did not know what they were burying in the trenches. A 1977 memorandum on the HPP/RPP stated that scrap “ must be covered with two feet of earth, although a December 14, 1977 memorandum stated that “the toxic and radioactive contaminated [remains of the Huntington, WV plant] had been found to be low enough to not require the two feet of cover.”
Ultimately, the massive burial blew the whistle on the secretive Portsmouth Goodyear operations about which workers did not speak. Geoffrey Sea, in a Harvard University thesis, stated that Huntington burial trampled the credibility of the “need to know” classification of work in Portsmouth. The thesis refers to the former Huntington facility as “an entire dismantled uranium processing plant from West Virginia” buried at a “classified nuclear waste site” which supervisors told workers “ didn’t happen.”
As for the current D & D work at the Portsmouth plant, Ron Hiles, a worker with a security clearance who escorts others to clean up location, emphasized that safety requirements are exceeded at the site. “Nobody wants to be messed up. We want to [live to] spend our money,” Hiles told HNN. “They are taking every precaution.”
Johnson, thanked the advisory board following the passage of the recommendation, emphasizing that “we appreciate the concerns for workers and safety of the community” regarding the proposed smelting facility and on-going work at the former uranium enrichment facility.
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Recycling Smelting Facility Recommended at Portsmouth
Could Open Area to More Industry But Comes with Perils of Nuclear Waste
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Piketon, OH (HNN) – A recommendation that the Department of Energy develop and design a metal smelter that would be suitable to recycle various types of metals into ingots from Decontamination & Decommissioning (D &D) activities at the former uranium plant has been approved by a 13-1 vote. Prior to the vote, various building trade union representatives spoke in favor of the proposed facility a possible job generator both for construction and operation.
The recommendation is an incremental step in the complete D & D of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant which -- along with one in Paducah, KY and Oak Ridge, TN -- performed uranium enrichment operations
According to the DOE website, the dismantling of the three former uranium process buildings are the size of 158 football fields ( about 96 acres) . Since 2005, the Portsmouth facility has operated in cold shutdown mode. The Cold Shutdown project entails equipment deactivation, uranium deposits removal from process equipment, and removal of PCB and lube oils to reduce worker hazards and the amount of wastes during evential D&D.
D & D will result in various types of scrap metals in the debris including steel, old pumps, motors, convertors, and industrial equipment.
One option would be to ship all of the scrap metal to Utah and Nevada. However, the recommendation involves construction of an on-site smelter to reduce and process scrap metals from the debris.
Radioactive uranium contamination would become part of the “dross” during the melting, leaving the majority of metals to be cast as ingots for future use. The uranium “dross” would be sent to low level radioactive disposal cells in the West.
Unfortunately, the preserved recycled scrap metals would have “trace amounts of radioactivity. These recycled metals should only be used under control conditions at DOE sites or possibly in the construction of nuclear reactors and associated equipment at nuclear power plants,” the recommendation states.
Since no other nuclear waste metal smelting facility exists in the United States, the possibility exists for the shipment of debris from other plants to be shipped to the Portsmouth smelting facility.
Mark Johnson, a representative of the Tri-State Building and Trades Council, spoke in favor of the smelting facility possibly “generating further industry” for the Southeastern Ohio area.
Terri Ann Smith, Site Specific Advisory Board member, voted against the recommendation.
“Nothing good can come from recycling this [contaminated] metals,” Smith said, referencing veterans issues from the Gulf War and Iraq War in which depleted uranium has been used for bullets and tanks which exposed soldiers and others to radioactivity.
Representatives of the DOE stated that the recommendation did not address the future uses, only whether to recycle the debris.
However, William Murphie, manager of the Portsmouth/Paducah Project, also manages the Depleated Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Conversion Project, which involves construction of two facilities to convert 700,000 metric tons of DUF6 to a more stable form for reuse and/or disposal.
Vina Colley, resident of (P.R.E.S.S) Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security and Co-Founder of (N.N.W.J.) National Nuclear Workers for Justice, expressed safety concerns for both workers and community members. Recalling previous efforts during the Cold War to recycle nuclear waste, Colley stated, “It seems like we are trying to recycle the past again.”
The Huntington Pilot Plant/Reduction Pilot Plant , which performed some recycling in the 1950s and early 1960s ended up closed and contaminated with uranium and other waste(s). It was eventually demolished and buried in a “classified” land fill at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Geoffrey Sea, Southern Ohio Neighbors Group, warned that the relatively generic recommendation could be twisted at will so that , for instance, an insertion could be made which would allow uranium (and other radioactive ) waste from other locations to be brought to Piketon.
Sea in a Harvard thesis helped blow the whistle on the entombing of the HPP/RPP.
At the time of the burial, workers did not know what they were burying in the trenches. A 1977 memorandum on the HPP/RPP stated that scrap “ must be covered with two feet of earth, although a December 14, 1977 memorandum stated that “the toxic and radioactive contaminated [remains of the Huntington, WV plant] had been found to be low enough to not require the two feet of cover.”
Ultimately, the massive burial blew the whistle on the secretive Portsmouth Goodyear operations about which workers did not speak. Geoffrey Sea, in a Harvard University thesis, stated that Huntington burial trampled the credibility of the “need to know” classification of work in Portsmouth. The thesis refers to the former Huntington facility as “an entire dismantled uranium processing plant from West Virginia” buried at a “classified nuclear waste site” which supervisors told workers “ didn’t happen.”
As for the current D & D work at the Portsmouth plant, Ron Hiles, a worker with a security clearance who escorts others to clean up location, emphasized that safety requirements are exceeded at the site. “Nobody wants to be messed up. We want to [live to] spend our money,” Hiles told HNN. “They are taking every precaution.”
Johnson, thanked the advisory board following the passage of the recommendation, emphasizing that “we appreciate the concerns for workers and safety of the community” regarding the proposed smelting facility and on-going work at the former uranium enrichment facility.
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