Fluor Idaho completes repackaging project

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK)-Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Plant crews call it one of the most challenging projects in the facility's 17-year history at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Fluor Idaho crews recently completed remote treatment and repackaging metal particles known as "fines". Fines were generated during historic weapons development and had been sent to INL from the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado. 176 drums of of the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Plant's inventory were believed to contain the reactive metal from the Environmental Management closure site near Denver.

"We had to revise our operating permit with the state of Idaho, put additional controls in place, and complete extra training with our staff before embarking on this waste treatment campaign," said Nate Loftus, a manager with Fluor Idaho, EM's INL Site cleanup contractor. "Our workers performed flawlessly. The work was done safely and according to procedures."

According to Fluor Idaho, operators deployed robotic equipment to open the containers in boxlines, which are huge concrete and metal hot cells where containers of radioactive waste are opened and sorted. The contents are placed on a large treatment tray. The robots move combustible material away from reactive material then investigated for reactivity.

19 of the 176 drums reacted with air when the contents were investigated.

Ultimately, workers used robotic arms to move the waste to 55-gallon drums for packaging. A super-compactor crushed each drum, creating 5 to 7-inch thick pucks that workers loaded five-deep into an overpack drum. That process prepared the waste for certification for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

The plant completed treatment of transuranic debris waste last fall, completing that original project mission.

The facility is now being used to accomplish additional environmental cleanup work.

It is continuing to ship the balance of 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic and low-level waste to off-site disposal facilities, as required by the 1995 Idaho Settlement Agreement.

The 5-year, $1.4 billion project was funded by the US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management.