Many Voices Working for the Community Oak Ridge |
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Many Voices Working for the Community Oak Ridge |
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Approved November 9, 2005 Meeting Minutes
The Oak Ridge Site Specific
Advisory Board (ORSSAB) held its monthly meeting on Wednesday, November 9,
2005, at the
Members Present
Heather Cothron
Steve Dixon
Steve Douglas
Meredith James1
Tonya Justice1
Lance Mezga
Tim Myrick
Robert Olson
Kerry Trammell, Chair
Members Absent
Pat Hill
Wade Johnson
Norman Mulvenon
Ken Sadler
1Student Representative
2Third
consecutive absence
Deputy Designated Federal Officer and Ex-Officios
Present
Pat Halsey, Federal
Coordinator, DOE-ORO
Connie Jones, Ex-Officio,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 4
Doug McCoy, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC)
Steve McCracken, Deputy
Designated Federal Officer
Others Present
Susan Gawarecki, Local
Oversight Committee
Spencer Gross, Spectrum
Fay Martin
Bill McMillan, DOE-ORO
Pete Osborne, Spectrum
Mike West, Bechtel Jacobs
Co. (BJC)
Joe Williams, BJC
Seven members of the public
were present.
Presentation
Haul Road Update
Mr.
McMillan, DOE project manager for the haul road, said the presentation was in
two parts. The first part was an update
of construction and the second part was a summary of the planned operations
after the road is opened.
Mr. Williams gave the update
on the haul road construction portion of the presentation. The road is a dedicated route for trucks to
carry waste from East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) for disposal in the
Environmental Management (EM) Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) at Y-12
National Security Complex (Y-12). He
began by noting what had been completed to date and what is left to be done
(Attachment 1, page 1, figure 2).
He said final cost to build
the road is going to be about $20 million, which is almost twice the original
estimate of $11-$12 million. He said the
increase was primarily due to underestimating construction costs during the
design phase. A number of realignments
to minimize archaeological, cultural, and biological impacts increased
costs. An additional bridge and an
upgrade to
The road crosses parts of
all three of the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) program areas of responsibility
for ETTP, Y-12, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The road crosses two public highways and one
railroad. Accommodations were made to protect
threatened and endangered species of the
Mr. Williams explained the
construction of mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls, which are built at
the bridge approaches (Attachment 1, page, 5, figure 10).
He also explained how the
bridges will be set in place (Attachment 1, page 6, figure 12). The bridges are pre-built in
Mr. Williams said the haul
road will be open for hunting, except near the bridge approaches because of their
proximity to the public roads. He said
no waste transporting or haul road construction will be done during hunting
weekends.
Mr. Williams said a bypass
channel will be dug around a weir on Bear Creek to restore the creek to a free
flowing condition and enhance biological diversity. The weir is currently an impediment to fish
migration. Bypassing the weir will create a wetland upstream of the weir. This work will be done in lieu of wetland
mitigation, which would require the creation of 2.6 acres of wetlands to
compensate for the loss of 1.3 acres of wetlands as a result of the road
construction.
In conclusion, Mr. Williams
noted remaining construction milestones (Attachment 1, page 12, figure 23).
He said the road is set to
open January 11, 2006.
A number of questions were
asked after Mr. Williams’ presentation.
Following are abridged questions and answers:
|
Question |
Answer |
|
Mr. Adams – This was an excellent
presentation. I’m wondering if you
could make this available for national publication. |
Mr. Williams – OK. |
|
Ms Cothron – What was the original purpose of the weir? |
Mr. Williams – I assume some water quality sampling and
stream flow gauging was done. Mr. McMillan – DOE had an interagency agreement with
the U.S. Geological Survey for flow monitoring. The weir was placed there by the USGS. |
|
Ms Bogard – I thought there were three bridges. Has that changed? |
Mr. Williams – No. Two cross the highways and one is
the |
|
Mr. Douglas – You said the road is open for hunting. Will it also be open for hiking and biking? |
Mr. Williams – No.
The expressed purpose of the haul road is for limited access to haul
waste more efficiently and with less risk to our drivers and the public. It is not an open public road. Mr. McCracken – Let me clarify that a little. The issue that was brought up during the
design phase of the haul road was that it would shut down a major portion of
the reservation for hunting. Our issue
was not having our trucks on the road during the times of the hunt, about
three weekends a year. We felt it was
not a great concession during those six days of the year that we would not
haul material on the road, so wouldn’t have to worry about pushing hunters back
from the haul road. The hunters will
not be driving on the road. They just
don’t have to worry about truck traffic during a hunt. |
|
Ms. Martin – Have you thought about naming the road after
someone? |
Mr. Williams – We want to name each of the bridges for
someone or some thing. And then we’ll name the road itself. |
Mr. West, manager of waste
generator services for BJC, began his portion of the presentation by saying
that he is responsible for waste transportation and safety for BJC’s EM
projects.
He gave a brief summary of
operations of the haul road (Attachment 1, page, 13, figure 26). He reiterated that the main purpose of the
road was to get trucks hauling hazardous waste off the public roads. He said about 14,000 vehicles travel along
Highway 58 in front of ETTP daily. He
said to add 60,000-70,000 truck trips hauling waste over the next few years
would create a large problem.
Mr. West said a centralized
transportation contractor will use trucks designed for use on the haul road,
and all drivers will receive the same safety training. Access controls will include properly badged
and trained personnel, and trucks will be specifically identified for haul road
use. Security patrols will be on the
road at times during waste transportation.
Trucks will be equipped with
two-way communication to report problems quickly. Traffic controls include slower speeds and
limited access to the road. Monitoring
will include air, road, and package/truck monitoring (Attachment 1, page 14,
figure 27).
He explained the need for a
transportation safety document (TSD). He
said transportation of hazardous waste on a dedicated road requires the same compliance
with hazardous materials regulations set by the Department of Transportation
(DOT). But a couple of exemptions from
regulations have been requested through a TSD.
The exceptions are related to documentation about what is being
transported and the containers used for transport, but the TSD still must
demonstrate safety compliance standards set by DOT.
Mr. West offered to return
in December or January to give more detail on the TSD after it has been
completed and approved by DOE, which is the approval authority for on-site
transfers of hazardous materials.
Mr. West was also asked a
number of questions after his presentation.
|
Question |
Answer |
|
Mr. Gibson – You mentioned some air
monitoring you were doing for particulate and that you could analyze for
radiological or chemical contamination.
Do you have a protocol or schedule yet for what you will do? You said there will be
traffic around the hub facility at the four-way stop where employees come in
at Portal 6. Are you giving special
consideration to contamination there so that personal vehicles don’t get
contaminated? That might be a natural
place where something might come out if not secured properly. When you turn off the
turnpike onto So when the bridges are
installed that will be discontinued? |
Mr. West – I can’t answer that
right now. I’ll have to get back to
you on that. I’ll have to check with
our health and safety people. The
monitoring is set up to look for less than 10 microns of particulate. But the system is set up so that we can use
different cartridges for chemical sampling, but I don’t know what protocol
we’ll be using. The haul will not be
contaminated. If we find
contamination, we’ll clean it up to clean limits. We’ll just have to enhance
our monitoring there. (to Mr. Williams) Joe, is
that the interim loop we’re going to bring in? Mr. Williams – Yes. While the bridges are being constructed
that will allow us to connect to Blair Road so we can get traffic off that
section of Blair Road between that curve and going back to Portal 5, so we
can start using the road as early as next week or so, as soon as we get all
the signs up and the readiness reviews done and get everything checked out. Yes. Once the Highway 58 bridge is in service,
we’ll stop using that. |
|
Mr. Douglas – How will emergency
response be coordinated? So the city will have no
primary response? |
Mr. West – It will be coordinated
between ETTP and Y-12 depending on the location. Again, we’ll have patrols on the road and
the drivers will have two-way communication so we’ll be able to dispatch from
either location. Not initially. There may be mutual aid or something like
that. |
|
Mr. Miller – In a follow up about
emergency response. There are at least
two opportunities where other agencies would get involved in case of an
accident on the bridges. I’m assuming
in that case the city and state would get involved. |
Mr. West – Yes. The bridges are designed in such a way to
minimize impact. Mr. Williams – We took that into
consideration in designing the bridges.
The bridges drain to the ends and there is a 40-inch parapet wall that
is outboard on both bridges that cross the highways to minimize the chances
of anything spilling over the sides. |
|
Mr. Myrick – One of the
justifications for building the road was increased efficiencies. Are you seeing huge increases in
efficiencies to make the $20 million worthwhile? |
Mr. West – We’re certainly seeing
efficiencies in equivalencies in documentation. In commercial transport I have to fill out
bills of ladening and manifests. Since
we’re in a controlled environment, I’ll be able to put that same information
on a waste shipment worksheet. The
level of efficiencies gathered there - will it be a savings to offset the $20
million? No. The big thing is the increase in safety to
the public. Mr. McCracken – The efficiencies are
going to be huge. We don’t have stop
signs to deal with any more. We don’t
have things that go along with flagmen or down time because there is a
traffic issue on the highway. If you
have one accident on that highway, we all know we’ll be shut down for a long
time. I don’t know if you can do
engineering calculations of efficiencies, but it is my intuition and belief
that they will be bigger than you can calculate. |
|
Ms. Gawarecki – At Portal 6, have you
done any traffic studies during peak hours of shift changes? How will a four-way stop sign impact back
up and flow into the plant? Are you planning not to
have everybody stop? Will you allow
free-flow of traffic? What I’m trying to get at
is when you put a stop sign on a road you get tremendous back up during peak
times. Do you have a plan to
ameliorate that? In the TSD, what is it you
are asking to be exempted so they are efficient to you? So the packaging will be
equivalent? The sediment behind the
weir dam. Has the degree of
contamination been reviewed by TDEC as to whether this will drive a cleanup
or is it considered below levels of concern? Are you planning to do any
periodic surveys of the haul road for radiological contamination and
especially before opening the area to hunters? |
Mr. West – We will have the
dispatch office right there so we will be able to control the flow of trucks
when we have traffic coming out of the Portal 6 parking lot. One of the traffic studies we did looked at
whether a bridge should be built there.
The study did not warrant that and indicated that we could control traffic
with administrative controls. No. We’ll still have everybody stop. I’m saying
we’ll be able to minimize the interaction by the timing of trucks coming
across there. We’ll have to evaluate
that as we go. If we have to shut the
haul road down and allow cross traffic to pass that would be an option, I
guess. Primarily in two areas:
the assignment of packages we are going to use and the labeling and manifest
requirements. Because it’s on a
controlled road, we can ask for an exemption from some of the labeling
requirements. Yes. We’ll be using accepted packaging – Type
A. The advantage of that is if you get
into the detail of surface contaminated objects you have to do certain types
of surveys. For a Type A package you
just have to account for the total amount of radioactivity in the containers. Mr. McCoy – Data were
collected. There were very, very small
amounts. Below levels of concern. Especially if we were going to leave it in
place. As a matter of fact, it was so
low that if it came out it would go to Y-12 (EMWMF). Mr. West - Yes. Our radiological contamination program will
be continuous monitoring. The program
is set up that the entire haul road will be surveyed at least once a
month. And prior to shutting down the
road for managed hunts we’ll do additional surveys. |
|
Mr. Dixon – How many trucks will
be used and where will they be stored and serviced? |
Mr. West – I don’t know how many
trucks are in the fleet. As far as
the number of trucks on the haul road at any given time, about 14. They will be stored and serviced at the
hub facility at Portal 6. |
|
Mr. Adams – Who owns the trucks? |
Mr. West – They are owned by the
subcontractor, WSMS (Waste Safety Management Solutions). |
|
Mr. Mezga – How many trips per day
will they make? So about 28 trips per
day? |
Mr. West – We’re trying to make
two to three turnarounds during an eight-hour shift. There will be some peaks
and valleys based on the generation rate. |
Mr. McMillan again offered
to return in December or January to provide the Board another update. He also offered to arrange tours of the haul
road for any interested Board members.
Deputy Designated Federal Officer and Ex-Officio
Comments
Mr. McCracken reported that
the budget requests for FY 2006 will likely be met.
He said a number of people
from DOE Headquarters on the EM senior staff, including Assistant Secretary
James Rispoli, visited the ORR recently and were impressed with the work being
done on the reservation.
He noted that a significant
milestone had been reached with the completion of decontamination and
decommissioning activities of Buildings K-29, K-31, and K-33 at ETTP.
Mr. Trammell asked what the
future of those buildings was. Mr.
McCracken said K-29 will be demolished, because its structural integrity was
not conducive to reuse. A final survey
is being done on K-31, and a few small locations have been found that will be
cleaned up. Mr. McCracken said K-31 will
be the focal point of marketing for reuse.
Once a tenant is found for K-31, K-33 will be marketed for tenancy. He said there is no intent to tear those
buildings down because of the investment that has been made to ready the
buildings for reuse.
Mr. Trammell asked about PCB
contaminations found in Building 1035 at ETTP related to plans for leasing or
transfer of the building. Mr. Adler
responded that a portion of the building has PCB contamination but has been
closed off for use. Another portion of the building is leased by a company to
store railroad equipment, the equipment is not stored on the floor but was on
wooden flats that would prevent contamination of the equipment. He said as part of the effort to characterize
the building for possible transfer, some levels of PCB contamination were found
on the flooring. Personnel working in
that part of the building must now wear protective booties. Discovery of the contamination may preclude
eventual transfer of the building. He
said the contamination is difficult to clean up but could be done by painting
the floors with a protective coating or removing the floor.
Mr. Trammell asked about the
proposed Integrated Disposition Plan for ORNL and Y-12. That plan would have surplus buildings at
both plants become part of the EM Program. The buildings would be demolished and
contaminated soils remediated. Mr.
McCracken said the plan has been received favorably and is being reviewed at
DOE headquarters. If it’s approved,
budget would have to be acquired to do the work.
Mr. Trammell asked about a
report of phosgene gas that may have been stored in some of the uranium
hexafluoride containers at ETTP. Mr. McCracken said an extensive search for
documentation has been done in
Mr. Trammell asked if a new contractor will be hired to
operate the Toxic Substances Control Act Incinerator (TSCAI). Mr. McCracken said BJC will operate the
incinerator for at least another year. He
also said the incinerator will continue to operate beyond 2008, but at this
time there is no rush to find another contractor to operate the incinerator at
the end of BJC’s current contract.
Mr. Myrick asked about the A-76 process, a
governmental process to determine if jobs held by federal employees can be
contracted to private enterprise. Mr.
McCracken said Assistant Secretary Rispoli had ordered a stop to the process
since EM was well into the cleanup program and the work was going well under its current
staffing arrangement.
Mr. Douglas asked about the transuranic waste (TRU)
waste handling at the Foster Wheeler Waste Processing Facility. Mr. McCracken said the plant was going
through an operational readiness review to resume handling of contact handled
(CH) TRU waste. DOE will do its own
operational readiness review when the Foster Wheeler review is finished. With the completion of both reviews
processing is due to start up in early December.
Mr. McCracken said the intent is to get the plant
ready to process remote handled (RH) TRU waste within a year or two, and the
plant would then process CH and RH TRU waste at the same time.
Mr. Bonner asked if the containers holding CH TRU
waste had to be vented and if that was done before they were received at the
Waste Processing Facility. Mr. McCracken
said the containers are vented by BJC before they go the processing
facility. Venting prevents the build up
of pressures by organics in the container head space that might lead to an
inadvertent ignition.
Mr. Miller commended DOE on reaching the disposition
of the legacy low level and mixed low level wastes. Mr. McCracken reminded the Board of another
upcoming milestone, the completion of remediation of
Mr. Adler had no comments.
Ms. Jones reported that EPA Region 4 had completed
negotiations for updating Appendix C milestones for FY 2006-08, which is
consistent with the cleanup agreement for
Mr. Trammell noted an EPA report called “Long-Term
Stewardship: Ensuring Environmental Site Cleanups Remain Protective Over Time”
(a copy of the document is available at the EPA website: www.epa.gov/landrevitalization/download/lts-report-sept2005.pdf
or from the OR
Mr. McCoy had no comments.
Public Comment.
Mr. Gibson noted an item
found on the DOE website called the Unreviewed Safety Questions (USQ) Quarterly
Report. The report identified seven USQ
determinations for the ORR. He suggested
these are items the Board should be aware of for possible consideration.
McCracken commented by
saying that the EM Program has a safety basis for each component of work done
in nuclear facilities. They define
certain parameters, and if the parameters change, a review must be done to
determine if it’s a positive or negative USQ.
He said it is a sign of a disciplined operation when people see a changed
condition and enter into the USQ process to determine if that changed condition
has a safety issue associated with it.
If it is a positive USQ then
an additional safety basis must be put in place to deal with the changed
condition.
Mr. McCracken said the
process to evaluate the change of a safety basis is good and is dependent upon
workers identifying a changed condition.
He said for workers to do that they must know what the safety basis
is. He said managers are careful not to
criticize workers when they discover, or think they discover, a changed
condition because that would undermine the system.
He offered to share more
with the Board about USQs if members were interested.
Mr. Gibson also said he was
impressed with some of the work that had been completed at ETTP. He noted the area around the K-1002 cafeteria
site had been graded and seeded. And he
said the debris from the demolition of the K-1004 A, B, and C laboratories had
been removed.
Announcements and Other Board Business
The next Board meeting will
be Wednesday, December 14, 2005 at the
The minutes of the October
12, 2005 meeting were approved.
The agenda items for two
consecutive absences for Mr. Myrick and Ms. Reagan were removed from the
agenda.
Committee Reports
Board Finance – Mr. Dixon reported that
the committee reviewed expenditures, the budget, and DOE allocation of funding
for the Board. The committee approved two
expenditure requests from the Public Outreach Committee for the Teacher’s
Workshop for the Stewardship Education Resource Kit and newspaper
advertisements for the new member recruitment campaign.
EM – Mr. Myrick reported that
the committee addressed four items at its October meeting: Natural Resource
Damage Assessment (NRDA); an update on the K-1007 ponds engineering evaluation/cost
analysis at ETTP; the delisting of leachate coming out of the EMWMF; and discussion
of securing a technical adviser to help committee members understand the
upcoming site wide Record of Decision for ETTP.
Mr. Myrick said the NRDA
presentation was very good and commended DOE and the trustees for coming to a
mutually acceptable agreement. He said
the committee has offered to draft a letter to all parties involved endorsing
the work and encouraging a similar process in future NRDA activities.
Mr. Trammell reminded the
Board that the next committee meeting will have a presentation on independent
verification – what it is, how it was used at Rocky Flats, and how it may have application
at ETTP. Mr. Mezga encouraged
Stewardship Committee members to attend the meeting as it is relevant for that
committee as well.
Public Outreach – Ms. Cothron said the
committee discussed budget and the Teacher’s Workshop for the Stewardship
Education Resource Kit which will be held in February 2006. She said Mr. Douglas will be attending the
Perma-Fix conference in
Stewardship – Mr. Bonner, vice chair, reported the October
meeting began with a stewardship education minute concerning the definition of
stewardship. The committee heard a
presentation from Sid Garland on the draft version of the long-term stewardship
implementation plan. He said committee
members were given copies of the document for study and asked to return
comments to Mr. Garland. Mr. Garland
will return to present the revised plan in December.
Executive – Mr. Trammell said the
committee discussed new member recruitment and said Ms. Halsey will report
during her comments. He said he and Mr.
Dixon met briefly with Assistant Secretary Rispoli during his visit to
Mr. Trammell reminded Board
members to review the materials in the meeting packets, particularly
correspondence, the EM Updates chart, and the Recommendation Tracking Chart.
Board Process – Ms. Bogard talked about
the new mentoring plan (Attachment 2).
She said the program is to begin immediately and to run for three months
at which time it will be evaluated for effectiveness. She said the hope is to secure a facilitator
who could help with at least one mentoring training session. She ran through the list of responsibilities
for the mentors and protégés. She also
noted the mentor/protégé pairings (Attachment 2, page 2). Mr. Myrick requested that mentors and
protégés be seated together at Board meetings.
She said the Board Process
meeting in November has been cancelled.
Federal Coordinator Report
Ms. Halsey said
there were currently two vacancies on the Board, and a new member recruitment
campaign had been launched. She said
there has been several inquiries and five applications received. She said a recruitment effort had not been
planned until spring 2006 because there had been enough candidates in the pool
to fill vacancies. But she said the pool
had dwindled, and a recruitment process was begun.
She said she
has asked Spectrum to begin a search for a technical adviser to assist the EM
Committee in reviewing the proposed plan for the upcoming site wide Record of
Decision for ETTP. She said it’s a very
important document, and the committee should have a competent adviser.
Mr. Trammell
also noted that work was being done to secure a facilitator for the EM and
Stewardship Committees. He said several
applications had been received, and he hopes someone can be secured soon to
provide long-term facilitation.
Ms. Halsey said
the ORSSAB will be hosting the spring SSAB Chairs’ meeting in April. She said a tour of ORR will be conducted on
April 26. The meeting itself will be
April 27-28. She said Assistant Secretary Rispoli will be asked to attend and
address the meeting.
Additions to the Agenda
No additions.
Motions
11/9/05.1
Mr. Myrick moved to approve
the agenda. Mr. Adams seconded and the
motion carried unanimously.
11/9/05.2
Mr. Dixon moved to approve
the minutes of the October 12 meeting.
Mr. Myrick seconded and the motion carried unanimously.
The meeting adjourned at 8:16 p.m.
Action Items
Respectfully submitted,
Sandy Reagan, Secretary
SR/rsg
Attachments
(2) to these minutes are available on request from the ORSSAB support office.