Tetra Tech was contracted by the DOE to provide design, construction and initial operation support for Oak Ridge / Melton Valley Transuranic Waste Treatment Facility. We performed conceptual and detail design and coordination with DOE’s technical representative. Approximately 500 construction design drawings were prepared, involving over 100 technical specifications and specification sheets to prepare for procurement. Facility design required an integrated multi-discipline team of engineering, health and safety, quality, radiation protection, construction, operations, cost estimating and procurement to achieve a cost-effective design on schedule to support facility construction. Facility design was sufficiently detailed to receive all required permits and licenses within 13 months of award, 2 months ahead of schedule.

Tetra Tech self-performed the majority of the construction of the facility which involved cast-in-place construction of a complex, multi-story, heavily reinforced (walls up to 2 feet thick) main processing building on an unimproved site. Construction included rebar, structural steel installation, erection, siding, roofing, piping, millwright, equipment setting and concrete work, involving more than 4,600 cubic yards of 4,000 psi concrete. The 3-story facility includes areas for processing of boxed and large component materials, including a 5-ton monorail hoist. Procedures and safety analyses were produced for discrete subcontractor work packages. Construction included a containment area with personnel airlocks and three material confinement chambers designed to allow segregated operations or to function together as an integrated engineered control under negative pressure, including engineered control links to a large hot cell for solid remote handled waste operations and a five-station, 40-foot-long glovebox for solid contact handled waste operations. Utilities, gloveboxes, HEPA filtration systems and fire suppression system were integrated. Additionally, Tetra Tech designed and built a remotely operated tank vault pump systems to retrieve material from underground storage tanks.

Project Highlights

• Over 1,300 days without a lost time injury and in excess of 900 days without a recordable injury, with total personnel radiation dose at only 10.2% of the dose goal for the supernate processing phase of the project
• Received DOE final approval to use the low-temperature drying technology proposed, the safest and most efficient treatment method for TRU waste
• Implemented DOE-approved and verified Integrated Safety Management System (ISMS) and quality assurance (QA) program
• Successfully met or exceeded target objectives on or ahead of schedule and budget