CH2MConnection
Savannah River Remediation Liquid Waste Contract Completes Grouting of Tank 16... Page 6
In this issue... 2 Safety First 3 Finishing the Finishing Plant 5 What’s Next? - Major Milestones 6 C(H2M)ommunity 7 Let’s Get Together
Leadership Perspective CH2M is continuing the legacy of excellence at Hanford. Our focus continues to be on safety, efficiencies and being a good steward of taxpayer dollars. Our delivery of performance indicates we are doing great in these areas! This newletter represents only a fraction of the great work and services that CH2M is providing to the Department of Energy (DOE) and other global clients on a daily basis. In this issue, you’ll learn more about how we are safely and compliantly demolishing the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), one of the highesthazard buildings at the Hanford Site. Meeting our goal of achieving slabon-grade at PFP by September 30, 2016 is key to our client the DOE, our community and our workers. This milestone will remove one of the most significant Hanford Site risks, and will allow DOE to continue cleanup progress across the site. Sometimes the simple solutions can have large paybacks. Our workers are challenging the status quo every day—safely and innovatively. It is because of steadfastly committed workforces dedicated to delivering excellence and meeting milestones that such significant progress has been made at the Hanford Site since 2008 in protecting employees, the public, the environment, and the Columbia River. I look forward to seeing the progress we’ll make over the next year at PFP, Hanford and across the DOE Complex and I thank our employees for their dedication to safety.
John Ciucci President and CEO CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company
What’s on your mind? What do you want to see in the next issue of CH2MConnection? Send us your ideas, comments and suggestions at Connection@ch2m.com.
1 September 2015
Safety First
CH2M–WG Idaho, LLC Reaches 1 Million Safe Work Hours for Fifth Time CWI has once again achieved 1 million safe work hours without a lost time injury
For the fifth time, our team at the Idaho Cleanup Project has reached one million man-hours without a recordable injury. With safety rates well below DOE goals and the complex average (TRC 0.36, DART 0.18), workers continue to keep safety a top priority. CWI President and CEO Tom Dieter congratulated staff, “You have continually proven that you complete work safely, with zero injuries, no matter how challenging the task may be. I also thank you for looking out for the safety of your colleagues. This is what teamwork is all about!”
CH2M MultiMillionaire Club URS-CH2M Oak Ridge
4.1 million hours Washington Closure Hanford
5.9 million hours CH2M-BWXT West Valley
1.5 million hours
Graphic to right reports hours since last lost work/days away injury
ty afe OE s t Bes n the D si x!! rate omple C
CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company Receives Safety Awards CHPRC was recently presented with VPP awards for safe practices at the Hanford Site
Based on CH2M’s safety leadership and actions at the Hanford Site, CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) received the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star of Excellence. The VPP Star is awarded for exemplary achievement in the prevention and control of occupational safety and health hazards and the development, implementation and continuous improvement of safety and health management systems. The Star of Excellence is awarded to VPP Star sites that demonstrate excellence in outreach and mentoring efforts related to VPP and exhibit exemplary employee involvement and management leadership related to VPP. CH2M also won one of two Safety & Health Outreach awards by the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (VPPPA) National Board of Directors for CHPRC’s “After School Matters” program, which also won the VPPPA Region X Innovation Award. The After School Matters program provides academic tutoring, homework assistance, mentoring and physical fitness development to students in the local Tri-Cities community in Washington State. CHPRC workers visit local schools and discuss their professions, the hazards faced on the job, hazard prevention, and allow kids to experience handson activities related to Hanford jobs. One of the main goals of the program is to expose the youth to occupations that do not require the traditional college route.
Finishing the Finishing Plant
In a year’s time, only a concrete slab will be left of the Hanford Site’s iconic Plutonium Finishing Plant Beginning operations in 1949, Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) was the final step in plutonium production, where plutonium was processed into hockey-puck sized “buttons” for safe shipment to weapons production facilities around the United States. The PFP Complex was the U.S. Government’s primary weapons-grade plutonium production facility for more than 40 years, but the legacy of operations at the PFP Complex left extensive contamination throughout the facilities. In December 2009, CH2M completed the packaging of all remaining plutonium at Hanford and shipped it to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This milestone shifted workers’ focus from protection and monitoring of plutonium to the decontamination and demolition of the sixty buildings associated with the PFP complex. Piece by piece, crews are currently preparing PFP to be decontaminated and demolished to “slab on grade” by this time next year. Heavily contaminated processing equipment inside the facility has been removed in preparation for demolition. Crews have removed the last glovebox from the ventilation system in the main processing portion of the facility. Workers have also successfully removed more than 52 pencil tank assemblies, made up of 196 long and thin tank sections, some of which were more than two stories tall. “The talented crews worked safely and compliantly removing these pencil tanks. Completing this task allows us to move into other areas of the facility that we need to prepare for demolition,” commented Mike Swartz CH2M Plutonium Finishing Plant Closure Project Vice President. Swartz looks forward to successfully eliminating one of Hanford’s biggest risks to the environment, community and Columbia River in just a year’s time, “We’ve made great progress recently, but more importantly, we’ve done so safely. I look forward to making even more progress in the months ahead as we move closer to the goal of building demolition and removing this hazard from the Hanford site by the end of fiscal year 2016.”
Cleaning up After the Atomic Man What’s left in the famous McCluskey Room?
In August, CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation teams safely and successfully removed the final gloveboxes from the Plutonium Finishing Pla glove box that made Hanford history. The glove box contained a column of resin that burst and severely injured Harold McCluskey in 197 heavily contaminated and the room sealed off for several decades.
In 2011, CH2M employees entered the room and removed two of the five gloveboxes. Using lessons learned from that experience and pr employees through extensive researched and training, CH2M employees re-entered the room and have removed the final gloveboxes, in Swartz commented, “Using protective equipment never before used on the Hanford Site, the team did a great job carefully preparing an the McCluskey Room. Our experienced workforce is making solid progress preparing the facility for demolition by September 30, 2016.”
Over the last year, workers prepared by improved ventilation, applied fixative to limit the spread of radioactive contamination, conducted apart the contaminated gloveboxes and packaged each piece for future off-site disposal. Video footage of these historical accomplishme Channel.
ant’s (PFP) McCluskey Room, including a 76, leaving the glovebox and the entire facility
rotective gear, which was chosen by involved ncluding the “McCluskey” glovebox. Mike nd safely executing the hazardous work inside
d radiological hazard surveys. Workers cut ents can be seen at the Hanford Site YouTube
year until PFP is demolished to its foundation
1
ancillary facilities successfully demolished
40
out of 174 gloveboxes removed or dispositioned
174
out of 196 pencil tank units in 52 assemblies removed
196
to-date overall demolition readiness
84%
What’s next? - Major Milestones
Another Liquid Waste Tank Safely Closed in Savannah River Tank 16 successfully grouted, Tank 12 ready on deck
Our team at the Savannah River Site Liquid Waste Contract has completed grouting (filled to the brim) of Liquid Waste Tank 16, over 1 month ahead of schedule. Using over 800 trucks and 1.2 million gallons of grout, it took about 3.5 months to complete the project. The closure of Tank 16 marks the fifth successful tank closure by our team at the Savannah River Site, Tank 12 will be the sixth. The last two tanks our team closed, 5 and 6, were completed at the end of 2013 four months ahead of schedule. Tank 12 is ready to grout and awaiting regulatory paperwork to be finalized and approved. Once the approval is granted, mobilization will occur and grouting will begin within 2 weeks. Both Tank 16 and Tank 12 have achieved Federal Facility Agreement milestones - grouting complete (tank closed) at Tank 16 and grout readiness at Tank 12.
Final Uranium-Enrichment Facility Cleanup Underway
CH2M is making major progress on completing the final cleanup of Oak Ridge’s gaseous diffusion complex Pre-demolition work is moving fast at K-27, the last of five gaseous diffusion plants on the Oak Ridge reservation in Tennessee. A sister facility to K-25, demolished earlier this summer, and K-31 demolished last year, K-27 is scheduled to start demolition in January 2016. When K-27 goes down, it will mark the first time, world-wide, a complete gaseous diffusion complex has been successfully demolished and cleaned up. To get ready for demolition, workers are currently removing transite panels from the outside of K-27—about 5,500 of them. The 1.1 million square foot facility still holds many hazards, including its original uranium-processing equipment. But, the workers are experienced from the successful K-25 and K-31 projects, and expect to meet DOE’s Vision 2016 by safely completing the demolition fifth gaseous diffusion plant, and the first complex in the world.
5 September 2015
In the C(H2M)ommunity
National Security Technologies, LLC Helps Make Nevada’s First National Memorial Possible NSTec donates $50,000 to the Silent Heroes of the Cold War National Memorial While hiking Mt. Charleston in 1998, Steven Ririe, a Las Vegas resident discovered remnants of a secret plane crash that occurred in November of 1955. The crash had killed fourteen Cold War heroes who were being transported in a US Air force C-45 to a classified location at Nevada National Security Site to work on the formerly top secret U2 reconnaissance aircraft and kept secret for decades. Ririe wanted to dedicate a memorial on the Spring Mountains Visitor Gateway looking toward the mountaintop where the crash occurred to honor those who died serving the United States during the Cold War. The memorial also recognizes those who have worked at the NNSS (formerly Nevada Test Site) through the decades to deter nuclear conflicts and keep our country safe. Construction on the memorial began in November 2012, and was dedicated this summer as the first national memorial in the state of Nevada. Ririe commented that the memorial could not have been completed without the $50,000 donation that NSTec provided.
CH2M Celebrates Decade of #1
ENR Ranks
1
#
in Environmental since 2006
CH2M has been ranked ENR’s #1 Environmental Firm for ten years running Since 2006, CH2M has been ranked the #1 Environmental Firm by Engineering News-Record (ENR). This year, CH2M has retained the number one ranking for the tenth consecutive year . CH2M reported to ENR that 62 percent of its total 2014 revenue was environmental in nature totaling $3.804 billion and sealing in the number one spot. We are also the long-running leader for ENR’s #1 Program Manager, holding that top spot for 12 years, since 2004. Some of the other number one rankings for CH2M this year include: • • • • •
#1 Program Manager #1 in Construction & Project Management #1 in State/Local Clients #1 in Sewer/Wastewater Design #1 in “Pure” Designers
Let’s get together. Upcoming events: 9/29 - 30 DOE National Cleanup Workshop 10/19 - 22 Annual Decisionmakers’ Forum 12/8 - 10 ETEBA Business Opportunities Conference Visit www.ch2m.com
CH2M Environment & Nuclear Communications Team ENCommunications@ch2m.com +1.808.440.0210