ICEM11 Final Program 9.7.11pm_ICEM07 Final Program ... - Events

Abstracts Session 8
SESSION 8 — EXPERIENCES IN ER CLEAN-UP METHODS AND ACTIONS (4.4)
1) GROUNDWATER REMEDIATION OF HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM ALONG THE
COLUMBIA RIVER AT THE HANFORD SITE IN WASHINGTON STATE, USA (wP-59030)
Dyan Foss, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company; Briant Charboneau, DOE RL (USA)
The U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Site, formerly used for nuclear weapons production, encompasses 1500 square kilometers
in southeast Washington State along the Columbia River. A principle threat to the river are the groundwater plumes of hexavalent
chromium (Cr(VI)), which affect approximately 9.8 square kilometers, and 4.1 kilometers of shoreline.
Cleanup goals are to stop Cr(VI) from entering the river by the end of 2012 and remediate the groundwater plumes to the drinking
water standards by the end of 2020. Five groundwater pump-and-treat systems are currently in operation for the remediation of
Cr(VI).
Since the 1990s, over 13.6 billion liters of groundwater have been treated; over 1,435 kg of Cr(VI) have been removed. This
paper describes the unique aspects of the site, its environmental setting, hydrogeology, groundwater-river interface, riverine
hydraulic effects, remediation activities completed to date, a summary of the current and proposed pump-and-treat operations, the
in situ redox manipulation barrier, and the effectiveness of passive barriers, resins, and treatability testing results of calcium polysulfide,
biostimulation, and electrocoagulation, currently under evaluation.
2) ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION OF AN ALSTOM GRID INDUSTRIAL SITE (FRANCE) (wP-59270)
Stéphanie Romero, ALSTOM GRID (France)
ALSTOM Grid is the project owner of the remediation of a former industrial site, located in Saint-Ouen, north of Paris. The
industrial activity (power transformer production) started in 1921 and stopped in 2006. The type of pollution is linked with the former
activity. It’s an organic pollution: hydrocarbon, PCB and chlorinated volatile organic compounds. The clean-up concerns soil
and groundwater.
The main specificity of the project is that the remediation is operated inside the existing industrial buildings which must be
kept in place and restituted to the owner after the works. The treatment of soil requires excavating soil up to 9 m deep (1 m under
the level of the groundwater) inside the buildings. As a consequence, some impressive devices were set up to ensure the stability
of the buildings during the clean-up, like support structures of the foundations and strengthening of the building fronts.
In the same time, it has to be pointed out that great diversity of clean-up actions is performed on the site: the soil is excavated
to be treated on site (bioremediation or chemical treatment) or off site. The treatment of groundwater consists of pumping the oil
staying on the surface and oxidizing the dissolved pollution.
This project is probably the first experience of this scale in France with multi-contaminated soil and groundwater decontamination
in keeping and reinforcing the existing buildings.
3) DESIGN AND INSTALLATION OF A PERMEABLE TREATMENT WALL TO PASSIVELY
REMOVE STRONTIUM-90 FROM GROUNDWATER AT A FORMER COMMERCIAL
NUCLEAR FUEL REPROCESSING FACILITY IN NEW YORK (wP-59292)
Douglas Bablitch, Rupeet Malhotra, Richard Frappa, Scott Warner, AMEC Geomatrix (USA)
A permeable treatment wall (PTW) was designed and installed at the West Valley Development Project (WVDP), a former
commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in New York, to passively remove and contain the expansion of strontium-90 (Sr-90)
in the site groundwater. AMEC engineers and geologists have collaborated with researchers at the State University of New York at
Buffalo (UB) and West Valley Environmental Services LLC to design and install an approximately 260 meter (860-foot) long by
0.9 meter (3-foot) thick zone of granular zeolite (a natural aggregate composed of approximately 85 percent of the mineral clinoptilolite)
that will remove Sr-90 in situ from groundwater through ion-exchange reactions. The PTW was designed to meet the functional
objectives for up to 20 years; performance monitoring will be conducted regularly and will be used to assess the lifetime efficacy
of the PTW. The zeolite-filled PTW was the selected remedial alternative due to its hydraulically passive operations and lower
life-cycle cost over other more traditional active treatment alternatives such as pump and treat.
The design relied heavily on detailed site characterization of site soils and groundwater conditions and bench and pilot scale
evaluations of various zeolite materials. The design specified the use of a one-pass…
4) DECOMMISSIONING OF THE ACTIVE STORAGE FACILITY FOR RESIDUALS IN RHEINSBERG
(BRANDENBURG/GERMANY) AND RESULTS OF GROUNDWATER MONITORING (wP-59134)
Mathias Steinhoff, Öko-Institut e.V. (Germany)
The Active Storage Facility for Residuals (Aktives Lager für Rückstände ALfR) an open air controlled area has been used
for storage of radioactive waste (liquid and solide waste) at the site of the NPP Rheinsberg in the former GDR. Liquid waste has
been cemented and dumped for near surface final disposal.
During period of operation of ALfR some incidents happened. Residues of evapo-rated cooling water of unknown amount (ca.
1-10 m³), the drop out from small leak-ages and wash off from contaminated open air storage barrels contaminated the soil.
Since 1997 the buildings of the ALfR are decommissioned and the site will be reme-diated. From the beginning of decommissioning
up to now the groundwater has been monitored.
This paper shows different steps of decommissioning and explains the experience of groundwater monitoring. Currently 33
sampling points are used for sampling groundwater of different layers. The radiological parameters under examination are Cobalt-
60, Cesium-137, Strontium-90 and Tritium. Non radiological Parameters like Bore, Potassium, Sodium, Nitrate, pH value and TOC
(total organic carbon) are also investigated.
Since 1997 activity concentration of Cobalt-60 and Tritium in groundwater has de-creased. The activity concentration of Strontium-90
had increased from 1997 to 2007. Since 2007
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