Trucks hauling containers of hazardous and low-level radioactive debris 'will continue throughout the summer'
Contractors dismantling Fort Greely’s old nuclear power plant have begun shipping scrap material from the project to a radioactive-waste storage site in Texas.
Army Corps of Engineers contractors last month began moving the tons of scrap material they’ve generated since the demolition work began in October.
“We've shipped 137 tons of low-level radioactive waste,” says Project Manager Brenda Barber. “We began those shipments on the 28th of March, and those shipments will continue throughout the summer.”
Barber says much of the material is classified as low-level radioactive waste. But some is contaminated with non-nuclear hazardous substances that builders often used back in the 1950s, when the power plant -- designated as the SM-1A -- was built. The prototype 22-megawatt heat and power plant operated from 1963 to 1972.
“So there's traditional environmental contaminants: “PCBs in the paint, lead in the paint, asbestos. All the traditional environmental hazards here,” she said.
The hazardous material includes debris from a small Quonset hut that was on the site, along with insulation and siding that’s been removed from the main structure’s steel frame.
Barber said in an interview last week that contractors paused hauling the stuff away until they could get more of the big intermodal shipping containers they use to transport the material.
“We'll resume shipping on the week of the 21st of April,” she said in an interview.
The containers are similar to a conventional roll-off dumpster, but bulkier and more heavily built. Barber says after they’re filled, they’re taken to a waste-storage facility about a mile north of the demolition site until they’re ready to be loaded onto trucks operated by Lynden Transport.
“When we're ready to ship, the Linden trucks arrive, we load them onto tandem trucks, we properly secure them, do another round of radiological surveys, and they're properly shipped offsite for their long journey down to waste control specialists.”
Trucks pulling two flatbeds loaded with one container each take them to the Alaska Railroad yard in Fairbanks, where they’re transferred onto railcars and taken to the port in Whittier. Then they’re barged to Seattle, loaded onto railcars and taken to a facility in Texas that can safely store the waste.
Barber says the containers are built to protect the public from being exposed to radiation.
“They are properly sealed, and we do a variety of radiological surveys to make sure that there's no dust or contaminant on the outside of the container,” she said. “In addition, we place absorbents and in some cases we line the container to make sure that there's no possibility for contaminants or dust to leak from the container.”
Meanwhile, workers with the project’s Louisiana-based contractor, Aptim-Amentum Alaska Decommissioning, and its subcontractors will begin work place a heavy plastic liner over the frame of a temporary steel-frame enclosure at the waste-storage site.
Barber said work will later begin in the fall on another enclosure over the old power plant building itself that’ll enable demolition work to continue through the winter.
“The liner will go on and the rest of the structural pieces will be put together in the September-October timeframe.”
Barber says despite a couple of delays, the Corps of Engineers hopes to complete the 95-million-dollar decommissioning and demolition project on time by August 2029.
Editor's note: More information about the SM-1A and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decommissioning and demolition project is available on the SM-1A Update webpage.
