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Professional Development Corps
Work Site Locations
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Savannah River
The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a key Department of Energy (DOE) site. There
are a number of programs and activities carried out at the site, including the
Environmental Management (EM) program that addresses the reduction of risks
through safe stabilization, treatment, and disposition of legacy nuclear
materials, spent nuclear fuel, and waste. The site is also part of the
industrial complex dedicated to the National Nuclear Security Administration
program that supports the DOE national security and nonproliferation programs.
The site is located near Aiken, South Carolina, and encompasses over 300 square
miles. There are more than 1,000 facilities at the site concentrated in only 10
percent of the total land area. The Savannah River Operations Office
is responsible for oversight of the operations at SRS.
SRS has (and is) played (ing) an important role in the maintenance of the U.S.
nuclear weapons complex. However, since the end of the Cold War, the mission of
SRS has increasingly focused on environmental management. Established in 1950
by the Atomic Energy Commission, SRS has been involved in the production of
tritium and plutonium in support of the Nation's nuclear stockpile. The current
mission of SRS includes nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship, nuclear
materials stewardship, and environmental stewardship. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile
Stewardship emphasizes science-based maintenance of the nuclear weapons
stockpile. SRS supports the stockpile by ensuring the safe and reliable
recycle, delivery, and management of tritium resources; by contributing to the
stockpile surveillance program; and by our ability to assist in the development
of alternatives for large-scale pit production capability, if required. Nuclear
Materials Stewardship is the management of excess nuclear materials, including
transportation, stabilization, storage, and disposition to support nuclear
nonproliferation initiatives. Primary nuclear materials in this program include
components from dismantled weapons, residues from weapons processing
activities, spent nuclear fuel, and other legacy materials. Environmental
Stewardship involves management, treatment, and disposal of radioactive and
non-radioactive wastes resulting from past, present, and future operations.
This stewardship includes pollution prevention and restoration of the
environment impacted by site operations. Environmental Stewardship also
encompasses the site's extensive natural and cultural resources.
The Savannah River cleanup strategy has three primary objectives: (1) Eliminate
the highest risks first through safe stabilization, treatment, and disposition
of EM owned nuclear materials, spent nuclear fuel, and waste; (2) Significantly
reduce costs of continuing operations and surveillance and maintenance; (3)
Decommission all EM-owned facilities and remediate groundwater and contaminated
soils, using an area closure approach.
Hanford
Hanford is located near Richland, Washington along the Columbia River and
encompasses about 586 square miles. The site is divided into several projects -
the Central Plateau, the River Corridor, and the Fast Flux Test Facility
projects. The Hanford Site was established during World War II to produce
plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons. Peak production years were reached
in the 1960s when nine production reactors were in operation along the Columbia
River. The last reactor to be shutdown was the N-Reactor, and its spent nuclear
fuel (originally stored in the K-Basins) has been relocated to dry storage in
the Central Plateau. Site support facilities are located in the 1100 Area, most
of which have been turned over to the local community. Soil and groundwater
contamination from past operations resulted in placement of the site on the
National Priorities (Superfund) List. The Hanford mission is now primarily site
cleanup/environmental restoration to protect the Columbia River. The Richland
Operations Office manages cleanup of the Hanford Site, with the
exception of the River Protection Project (waste tank farms), which is managed
by the Office of River Protection. The Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory is also located at Hanford and is managed by DOE’s Office
of Science, Pacific Northwest Site Office. The primary cleanup focus at the
site is the safe storage, treatment and disposal of Hanford’s legacy wastes and
environmental restoration. The cleanup strategy is a risk-based approach that
focuses first on those contaminant sources that are the greatest contributors
to risk. Risk to the public, workers, and environment will be reduced by
removing contamination before it migrates to the Columbia River. This includes
cleanup of facilities/waste sites in the 100 Area, 200 Area and 300 Area, as
well as retrieval of suspect transuranic waste for final disposition off-site.
The final focus is the cleanup of the Central Plateau with priority on the
decontamination and decommissioning of the Plutonium Finishing Plant and
completion of groundwater remediation. Safe and secure interim storage of
special nuclear material and spent nuclear fuel will be continued. The Federal
government is expected to maintain ownership of most of the site once cleanup
is complete, planned for 2035.
The River Protection Project was established in 1999 to address the storage,
retrieval, treatment, immobilization, and disposal of tank waste and the
operation, maintenance, engineering, and construction activities in the 200
Area Tank Farms. These Tank Farms include 177 underground storage tanks (149
single-shell tanks and 28 double-shell tanks) that contain approximately 190
million curies in approximately 53 million gallons of chemically hazardous
radioactive waste from past processing operations. A multi-year construction
project to build a Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant to process and
immobilize the tank waste is ongoing. The River Protection Project’s cleanup
strategy is a risk-based approach that focuses first on those contaminant
sources that are the greatest contributors to risk by 2035.
Portsmouth/Paducah Sites
For approximately 50 years, the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in
Portsmouth, Ohio and the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Kentucky
supported Federal Government and commercial nuclear power missions. Decades of
nuclear energy and national security missions left radioactive and chemical
contamination at both sites. The missions of the sites are transitioning from
primarily enrichment operations to shared missions with environmental cleanup,
waste management, depleted uranium conversion, deactivation and
decommissioning, re-industrialization, and long-term stewardship. The
Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, established in October 1, 2003, provides
focused leadership to the sites?changing missions and oversees cleanup and
disposition of the Department’s stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride
stored at the sites.
Portsmouth
The Portsmouth site is located approximately 75 miles south of Columbus, Ohio
in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Construction of the Portsmouth
Gaseous Diffusion Plant began in late 1952 with a mission to increase the
national production of enriched uranium and maintain the nation’s superiority
in the development and use of nuclear energy. The first enrichment diffusion
cells went on line in September 1954, and the facility was fully operational in
March 1956. The enriched uranium was provided to both government and commercial
users. In the mid-1980s, the facilities and equipment required for the next
generation of enrichment facilities technology, the Gas Centrifuge Enrichment
Process, were constructed and installed at Portsmouth. However, the project was
terminated in 1985. The United States Enrichment Corporation selected the
Portsmouth site in 2004 as the location for deployment of a commercial
centrifuge plant by the end of the decade.
Paducah
The Paducah site, comprising approximately 3,400 acres, is located in rural
western Kentucky, 15 miles west of Paducah, Kentucky, near the confluence of
the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The original mission at the Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant was to produce low-assay enriched uranium for use as commercial
nuclear reactor fuel. Initial production of enriched uranium began in 1952. In
1953, recycled uranium from nuclear reactors was introduced into the Paducah
enrichment process, which continued through 1964. In 1964, feed material was
switched to virgin-mined uranium. Use of recycled uranium resumed in 1969 and
continued through 1976, when it permanently ceased. In 1993, uranium enrichment
operations were turned over to the United States Enrichment Corporation. While
the United States Enrichment Corporation operates the enrichment program, DOE
owns the physical plant and is responsible for the environmental cleanup. In
2001, the United States Enrichment Corporation selected Paducah as the site to
continue gaseous diffusion operations pending successful pilot plant
demonstration (lead cascade) and deployment of the next generation of
enrichment technology. The Paducah site will maintain gaseous diffusion
operations through this budget period. DOE continues to be responsible for
management of the site, administration of the lease with the United States
Enrichment Corporation, environmental remediation, and legacy waste/materials
management.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and the National Transuranic Waste Program
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was the world’s first permitted deep geologic
repository for the permanent disposal of radioactive waste. It is located in
Eddy County in southeastern New Mexico, 26 miles southeast of Carlsbad. The
Plant’s total land area consists of 10,240 acres with the fenced surface
portion of the active site being about 35 acres in size. It is located in an
area of low population density and the area surrounding the facility is used
primarily for grazing, and development of potash, oil, salt, and natural gas
resources. The Carlsbad Field Office serves as the focal point
for the nation’s transuranic waste management efforts. The Carlsbad Field
Office has the responsibility for management of the National Transuranic Waste
Program, whose mission is the implementation and management of a national
system that safely and cost-effectively provides for the certification,
transportation, and disposal of defense-generated transuranic waste.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is an integral part of the National Transuranic
Waste Program and is also managed by the Carlsbad Field Office. This Plant,
near Carlsbad, New Mexico, is the Nation’s only mined geologic repository for
the permanent disposal of defense-generated transuranic waste. The waste
disposal area is 2,150 feet (almost one-half mile) below the surface located in
200-million year old stable salt beds. The transuranic waste, from all the
generator sites that are eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant, must ultimately be transported to this repository for receipt, handling,
and disposal.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is an operating facility, supporting the
cleanup of transuranic waste from waste generator and storage sites. It is not
a cleanup site. The end-state for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is to cease
disposal of legacy and newly generated transuranic waste from the DOE complex
to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2030. Decommissioning of the surface
facilities and permanent closure of the underground will be completed in 2035,
at which time passive institutional controls will be constructed.
Idaho National Laboratory
 The Idaho National Laboratory is located in southeast Idaho,
near the northeast end of Idaho's Snake River Plain, which extends in a broad
arc from the Idaho-Oregon border on the west to the Yellowstone Plateau on the
east. Although the total land mass is 890 square miles, most of the work at the
Idaho National Laboratory is performed within the site’s primary facility
areas: Idaho Nuclear Technological and Engineering Center, Radioactive Waste
Management Complex, Test Area North, and Reactor Technology Complex (formerly
the Test Reactor Area).
In 1991, the Environmental Protection Agency designated the Snake River Plain
Aquifer a sole-source aquifer. Since its establishment in 1949, the Idaho
National Laboratory has fulfilled numerous Department of Energy (DOE) missions
including designing and testing of 52 nuclear reactors and reprocessing spent
nuclear fuel to recover fissile materials. These activities have resulted in an
inventory of high-level, transuranic, mixed low-level and low-level wastes,
which are being disposed in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
The laboratory is also responsible for storing and dispositioning approximately
250 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from a number of sources, including the
Navy, foreign and domestic research reactors, and some commercial reactors,
along with DOE owned fuel. The site is on the United States Environmental
Protection Agency’s National Priorities (Superfund) List, and environmental
remediation activities are required at ten Waste Area Groups encompassing 100
operable units, including Naval Reactors Facility Waste Area Group 8 and
Argonne National Laboratory-West Waste Area Group 9.
The Idaho Operations Office, under the DOE Office of Nuclear
Energy, is responsible for oversight and operations of the Idaho National
Laboratory (INL). The INL’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) Program
is responsible for managing a variety of radioactive and hazardous wastes and
materials that originate from those missions and from other DOE facilities. The
EM program is treating, storing and disposing of a variety of waste streams,
cleaning up the environment, removing or deactivating unneeded facilities, and
will remove DOE’s inventory of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste from
Idaho. The EM end-state vision consists of achieving the following: by 2012,
the Idaho National Laboratory will have achieved significant risk reduction and
will have placed materials in safe storage ready for disposal by 2020.
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