Idaho Site Innovation Resolves 30-Year Excess Equipment Challenge

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – EM has devised a simple but effective way to eliminate proliferation concerns and remove excess components slated for a classified, Cold War era facility at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site.

The supply chain management group at Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC), EM’s INL Site cleanup contractor, had a challenge to overcome: how to remove 400 pallets and crates of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) components, fire sprinkler system piping, and electrical equipment purchased 30 years ago for a new spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC).

Despite the Fuel Reprocessing Restoration Facility never entering service and the U.S. ending reprocessing in 1992, the components were considered high-risk or sensitive material.

“Originally, the plan was to have an auction for this material, but we couldn’t because of its sensitive nature,” said IEC Senior Procurement Manager Rod Harrison. “Because of the makeup of that building and the stainless steel components, it was considered high-risk or sensitive material.”

Harrison and his colleagues offered a solution: “Why don’t we treat it all as scrap?” Harrison asked. “We can have a ‘scrapper’ come in and shred the material.”

Harrison and Supply Chain Manager Shawna Southwick shared their idea with their EM counterparts, who supported the concept.

A scrap dealer from Blackfoot, Idaho, who had already been collecting and shredding excess metal from the INL Site, was subcontracted by IEC to take it to his business in Blackfoot, compact or shred it, and send it to a contractor in Utah to melt it. Once the material was no longer recognizable, it was no longer considered sensitive.

Earlier this month, the last of the approximately 500,000 pounds of stainless and carbon steel and copper wire left INTEC en route to the Blackfoot scrap dealer.

“Just getting that out of there is a big win for DOE,” said Harrison. “The process eliminates all of the high-risk, export-control issues. We have no proliferation material.”

Now that space is freed up at the Fuel Reprocessing Restoration Facility, IEC plans to install electrical equipment, a fire sprinkler system, and HVAC for EM's calcine retrieval project, which is testing waste retrieval technologies on a full-scale mockup of a calcine bin set. The project is tasked with retrieving 220 cubic meters of a dried, high-level radioactive waste from Bin Set 1 and transferring it to nearby Bin Set 6. The first bin set would then be closed under federal regulations.

The team is also scheduled to retrieve, treat and repackage an additional 4,200 cubic meters of calcine from five other bin sets. All calcine must be ready to leave the state of Idaho by 2035 in compliance with a 1995 Idaho Settlement Agreement milestone.

Harrison said IEC employees couldn’t install the 30-year-old excess equipment because they couldn’t confirm its quality.

All excess material was safely transferred offsite, ending the 30-year challenge.

“I’m extremely proud of the work of everyone involved in the process from beginning to end,” said Southwick. “My biggest concern was the age of the pallets and the size of some of the material that had to be removed from the building. To accomplish this task safely was a victory for everyone.”