Bechtel is constructing the Hanford Vitrification Plant, which will include four main state-of-the-art facilities and some 20 additional support facilities.

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In southeastern Washington, adjacent to the Columbia River, is the site of a first-of-its-kind nuclear waste treatment plant designed to vitrify 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste, thus preventing it from threatening the environment and the public. Vitrification is a proven process of blending the waste with molten glass and placing the product in stainless steel canisters.

The landmark project and task of constructing the $12.2 billion project is in the hands of Bechtel National Inc., an engineering, construction and project management firm.  Its ability to provide world-class engineering, construction and management services on large, complex, first-of-a-kind projects has made the company a leading contractor within the government sector with projects being undertaken for the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the National Nuclear Security Administration and Homeland Security, according to Project Manager Larry Simmons.

In 2000, Bechtel was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to design and construct the vitrification plant that will address tank waste at the Hanford site. The plant consists of four main state-of-the-art facilities and some 20 additional support facilities, such as chiller compressor and steam plants, switchgear buildings and fuel oil facilities.

Complex Issues
The 586-square-mile Hanford site is located along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington. In the 1940s, beginning with the Manhattan Project, Hanford was at one time central to the nation’s defense activities, housing a plutonium production complex with nine nuclear reactors and associated processing facilities. In 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, plutonium production ended, leaving millions of gallons of nuclear waste in its wake.

The site now contains some 53 million gallons of high-level liquid waste in 177 underground storage tanks, 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel, 12 tons of plutonium in various forms and about 25 million cubic feet of buried or stored solid waste. It is also home to about 270 billion gallons of groundwater contaminated above drinking water standards, spread out over about 80 square miles, more than 1,700 waste sites and about 500 contaminated facilities, according to the DOE.

The solution for the 53 million gallons of liquid waste? Vitrify the tank waste by blending it with molten glass, place it in stainless steel canisters for safe storage underground and the radioactivity will dissipate over hundreds to thousands of years. Four main facilities will support these activities: pretreatment, low-activity waste vitrification, high-level waste vitrification and an analytical lab.

“Each facility is a project onto itself,” Simmons says. “It’s a $12 billion project, so you have to divide it into manageable chunks.” The complex nature of each facility has required Bechtel to assign a project manager to each facility. In the past eight years, despite a few delays, the firm has pushed forward with engineering and construction. Simmons says Bechtel’s portion of the project is about 48 percent complete.

Although construction is progressing on each facility, Bechtel remains heavily focused on engineering. About 900 engineers are working in Richland, Wash., which is approximately 25 miles from the construction site and an additional 200 are working in two locations on the east and west coasts. The goal moving forward is to intentionally create a one-year backlog between the completion of engineering and the associated follow-on construction. The total project, situated on a 65-acre site, is scheduled to be operational in 2019.
 
Providing Solutions
During the pretreatment phase, waste travels from the underground storage tanks via an underground double-walled pipeline into the pretreatment facility. Here, waste is separated into low-activity and high-level radioactive waste.

Waste is concentrated by removing water in an evaporator; solids are then filtered out, and the remaining soluble highly radioactive isotopes are separated in ion exchange units.

Once the waste is separated and sent to the appropriate facility, vitrification can begin. Low-activity waste goes into one of two melters where silica and other glass-forming materials are added. The mixture is heated to 2,100 F and put into stainless steel canisters seven feet tall, four feet in diameter and weighing seven tons when filled. These containers will be stored at Hanford in specialized underground trenches.

High-level waste undergoes a similar process, but will be stored in canisters that are 14 feet tall, two feet in diameter and weigh more than four tons when filled. The containers will be temporarily stored at Hanford until they are shipped to a national geological repository for permanent disposal underground.

The analytical laboratory is the link that brings together the processing that takes place within the three facilities and en­sures that the glass end-product meets stringent regulatory requirements and standards. The lab is expected to analyze 10,000 waste samples annually, thus ensuring the proper glass forming recipe is created for each batch and the final product meets all quality standards.

Through cold commissioning, the company will test the system operation using a non-radioactive simulant. Once there is solid proof the treatment facilities work as they should, Bechtel will obtain permission from the regulators to introduce radioactive material.

Keeping It Safe
By nature, construction can be a risky business, but the complexity of building facilities for separating, treating and containing highly radioactive material ups the ante. Managing a safe work environment is of the utmost importance on the project.    

“When you’re assembling a large work force coming from all walks of life, before we put anyone to work, we get them in­doctrinated into nuclear safety and quality, and we do that with our Nuclear Safety and Quality Culture program,” Simmons explains. “Nuclear safety, industrial safety and quality are values that we hold sacred, and they take precedence over all other challenges that we encounter.

“Across the entire project there may be as many as 500 meetings that take place each week and every meeting starts with a safety message,” Simmons notes. “Safety and quality are communicated day in and day out in a consistent manner throughout the entire organization.”

Construction Manager David Leeth explains that peer reviews and constant monitoring of jobsite safety put workers in a setting where they can succeed. “We provide [the work force] with one of the safest work environments possible.  They are never asked to work at risk, and they have the best quality equipment that is available to do the job,” Leeth notes. 

Bechtel uses a craft-based safety management program called Safety Education Through Observation, or SETO. Craft workers involved in this voluntary program observe other crafts working in the field and then provide feedback on the methods and behaviors observed. Roughly 30 employees participate in the program by conducting the observations two hours per week. “It’s a forward-looking metric where we can tell what we need to fix before we have an injury,” Leeth says.

In addition, an on-site safety council meets every other day for about an hour-and-a-half to discuss suggestions and improvements on job site safety.  The site also has other safety committees such as an electrical safety committee that meets  regularly to cover specific topics specific to the trade.

Proper documentation and the management of information, as well as managing the schedule and budget are also important priorities for Bechtel. The company uses a certified earned-value management system (EVMS) to track the work that is being accomplished and to evaluate performance and document the process.

“Eleven years from now, we must be able to prove that the plant has been designed and constructed in accordance with strict quality standards, and it’s our responsibility to keep that paperwork in line,” Simmons says.

Each project manager is supported by a management information center for each building – a hub of activity where members of an integrated project team (IPT) can access information on cost, quality metrics, data analysis, procurement, safety information and progress photos. The IPT consists of representatives from all major functions on the project.

Managing Schedule
Bechtel manages the procurement of materials and work schedules using a proprietary procurement program. The cornerstone of the entire process is work packages, which outline a finite amount of work for one crew. By separating projects out according to these work packages, Bechtel and the work crew gain a clear understanding of the type and quantity of material it will take to complete the portion of the project. Using the database, crews can easily identify material lists, order delivery dates and when material arrives in the warehouse. The system – which is man­aged from the construction site – all­ows contractors to determine when they can move ahead on a work package.

Bechtel’s master schedule on each of the four projects determines when a certain element must be installed. From there, the company traces the path backwards to determine when the material must be procured based on a four- to six-month evaluation and award process, including the time it take to bid a portion of the project.

Managing Risk
“Without any exaggeration, there are always a multitude of challenges that present themselves at any given time.  Each issue can be carved out as a task onto itself and we determine how to address each one,” Simmons explains.

“We decide the best way to incorporate a solution, we execute our plan, and we put the issue to rest. On a $12 billion project with 19 years in duration, there will be no shortage of challenges.  The point is, we take them on, break them down and resolve them. Taking on challenges is what makes for an exciting career.”

One of the early challenges Bechtel faced was the changing seismic criteria. Because of the sensitive nature of the activities at the treatment facility, any increase in ground motion could impact the design of the facilities. In 2004, after the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board requested further review of the soils under the treatment plant, the DOE commissioned a report that resulted in increasing the seismic requirements by 38 percent.

In the process of modifying the seismic criteria, DOE requested that construction and procurement temporarily cease on the pretreatment and high-level waste facilities. The delay lasted 18 months and following the release of the report, Simmons says, Bechtel did not have to make any major revisions to the existing construction since the existing design had sufficient margin designed in.

According to Simmons, “We don’t just build a facility like this and then bring in radioactive material. We build the plant and test every single component individually and then test the plant, system by system. Only after we have demonstrated our readiness to an independent oversight group are we allowed to introduce radioactive waste.”

External Pressures
Bechtel is not immune to competition for talent. A strong global economy and other market pressures domestically have drained the potential talent pool. The firm aggressively recruits engineers at colleges and universities nationwide, as well as operates an internship program. This year, Simmons says, it hired 90 summer interns.

“The industry is all feeding out of the same pond,” Simmons says.

“There are only so many engineers with a nuclear background, and we are faced with a near-term nuclear renaissance. The project team is confident that the project will be a big success. We have a proud, dedicated and intelligent work force who are translating our plans into a reality.”

Long History
Bechtel became involved in site remediation work with the DOE in 1987 under the Formally Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), a program established by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in March 1974 to identify, investigate and take appropriate cleanup action at sites where work was performed in support of the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) and early AEC programs.

Site activities leading up to the need for remediation included uranium ore storage and processing, uranium metal machining and fuel element fabrication.
In 1977, the administration and execution of FUSRAP was assumed by DOE, the successor agency to AEC. The initial task was to identify potential sites for cleanup. After reviewing records and radiometric surveys for residual radioactive contamination on more than 600 sites, DOE identified 46 sites that re­quired cleanup.

Limited cleanup began in 1979, and major remedial action was under way by 1981. Between 1981 and 1997, DOE remediated 25 of the 46 sites. In 1997, Congress transferred responsibility for site surveys and remediation to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. DOE remains responsible for initial eligibility determinations and long-term surveillance and maintenance.

As Simmons explains, the company is using lessons learned from its long in­volvement in work for the DOE as it de­signs, constructs and commissions the Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford.

Now 48 percent complete overall, there are many indicators that all involved are rising to the challenge of designing, supplying to and constructing this plant.