Saltstone Marks New Processing Record in December
January 27, 2010
AIKEN, S.C. - The Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) completed its best ever month of processing low-level liquid salt waste in December. The facility is a major component of the liquid waste operations at the Savannah River Site (SRS) and instrumental in Savannah River Remediation (SRR) cleaning and closing SRS’s hazardous waste tanks.
The facility processed 510,365 gallons of salt waste last month bringing its processing total to over 3.4 million gallons since it began operations in June 1990. Processing and safely disposing of hazardous waste minimizes any contamination risk to employees, the public or environment. The facility is scheduled to process a total of 35 million gallons of salt waste during the SRR contract, which ends in 2017.
“The Saltstone Facilities are significant in our mission to safely and permanently dispose of salt waste,” said Terrel Spears, Manager for Waste Disposition Project, DOE-Savannah River Operations Office. “The waste immobilization of lower-radioactive materials through Saltstone mean we can continue to take strides toward closing our waste tanks, a high priority for DOE, our regulators and our stakeholders.”
Jim French, Savannah River Remediation President and Project Manager, said continued improvements and enhancements at the SPF made by a dedicated workforce is beginning to pay off for the project.
“We have made several major commitments in closing SRS waste tanks during our contract and they cannot be accomplished unless we improve our processing and enhance the way we do business,” said French. “What our dedicated employees accomplished in December at SPF is a testimony to what we will accomplish during our contract. I am proud of our employees.”
The Saltstone facilities, which include the SPF and the Saltstone Disposal Facility (SDF), safely stabilize and dispose of low-level salt waste that is produced and disposed at SRS. The SPF receives the salt waste from the Site’s tank farms and stabilizes it by mixing the salt solution with cement, fly ash and slag. The resulting grout mixture is mechanically pumped into concrete storage cells in the SDF, where the grout solidifies into a non-hazardous waste for permanent disposal.
SRS is owned by DOE. The SRS Liquid Waste contract is managed by SRR, a team of companies led by URS Corp. with partners Bechtel National, CH2M Hill and Babcock & Wilcox. Critical subcontractors for the contract are AREVA, Energy Solutions and URS Safety Management Solutions.
Point of Contact: Dean Campbell, Manager, Public Affairs dean.campbell@srs.gov