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Savannah River Site MOX facility cleans up
By Shelia Watson
Staff Writer
Site preparation and cleanup on the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel fabrication facility at the Savannah River Site, also known as the MOX facility, has been completed on time, with no lost days due to injury and $10 million under budget.
“This site prep work was part of the MOX construction project, getting it ready for the MOX facility,” said Perry Stanley, the MOX site prep project manager. “We were also preparing for other projects in area. The actual footprint was larger than just the MOX site.”
The cleanup started in October 2005, and the concept was to use multiple subcontractors to be able to control the work, Stanley said.
The project consisted of harvesting 81 acres of marketable timber, cleaning and grubbing 120 acres, moving 2 million cubic yards of soil, unloading rock from more than 10,000 dump trucks and placing 45,000 tons of crush rock.
“Early on we did the clearing and grubbing and did some smaller earth-moving items to get the site ready,” he said. “We had multiple small businesses from the local area doing that.”
Because of challenges with water run-off and retention, the site preparation also included constructing three major retention ponds along with storm-water piping and building 2,400 linear feet of engineered channels.
The team also installed water utilities, relocated power lines to provide temporary power and telecommunications, and built sewer system for the various buildings.
The work was streamlined as much as possible, but the real savings came about with the major contracts, which included the mass excavation and utility work.
“We recruited very heavily for excavation work and were fortunate to get some new companies that hadn’t worked here before, and that drove a good competition with the bid,” said Sam Speight, director of nuclear non proliferation programs for Washington Savannah River Co., which is managing the construction of the facility.
“The bulk of our savings was in our largest contract. Then we were able to use the other contractors as necessary to do the bulk of other work, and we were able to eliminate a lot of duplication,” he said.
“When Washington Savannah River Co. was first asked to look at this task, we came up with a proposal to incorporate the site prep into a project larger than the MOX site. There are two other facilities that will support the plutonium program, the pit disassembly and conversion area and the waste solidification facility. The MOX facility is the centerpiece.”
When company officials looked at the plan and at the topography, they realized that if they did the projects separately, one project would take thousands of loads of dirt out and the other project would bring the fill dirt back in. They worked on that problem and did a few efficiency studies and ended up moving all the dirt in one shot, saving 50,000 loads of material that otherwise would have had to make two trips.
“That’s a lot of savings to the government, and that’s in addition to the $10 million savings,” he said.
Speight credits Perry’s team with being efficient in its task.
“They really looked at things holistically and were able to combine some activities and work with subcontractors,” he said.
“When you think of Washington Savannah River Company and the Savannah River Site, you don’t necessarily think of large civil projects, you think of nuclear plants,” Speight said. “So although this is not necessary what we’re known for, it just proves that the folks here can effectively pull off projects, whether they’re civil or nuclear.”
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