DOE OSTI2012
On August 1, 2011, URS - CH2M Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR) began cleanup of the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP). UCOR's $2.2 billion contract has an initial five-year term and a four-year option period for completing the cleanup of ETTP and performing surveillance and maintenance and waste management operations at both the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex. ETTP D and D work includes disposition of large, complex, contaminated, Manhattan Project-era facilities such as the K-25 and K-27 uranium enrichment facilities. At ETTP, UCOR views the D and D process as a 'Waste Factory' with waste production lines from the point-of-generation to the point-of-disposal. Safely transforming vertically-standing buildings into horizontally-lying waste in a disposal facility is the primary cleanup objective. Whereas a factory produces widgets, D and D produces waste-lots of waste. In support of the Waste Factory view, UCOR is developing a systems planning tool to help better plan how to effect cleanup by improving waste planning, uniting waste generator with waste dis-positioner, and represent the 'waste factory' in a computer model that allows the D and D and waste management teams to better understand available disposal paths, waste uncertainties and potential consequences, driving variables, and sensitivity to changes. Any model of reality represents a compromise. Part of the Waste Factory Model's value may be in providing standardization and relative direction for assisting decision making as opposed to absolute cost or schedule answers. From that relative direction, management can commission detailed planning and estimating. Also, the model's output credibility is tied directly to its input quality. That is why, as discussed above, the Waste Factory Model's key informational component will be the standardized waste streams (e.g., Structure/Debris disposed at EMWMF) and associated standardized unit costs. The model development process generally, and the development team's collaboration, specifically, is most important. Building-in this integrity up-front, transparently, will help ensure that the model outputs are known, understood, and credible (no mysterious 'black-box' components). The Waste Factory Model is envisioned to help improve understanding of a given project's waste implications; help reveal and suggest the important few variables out of the trivial many; reveal likely process bottlenecks, and help focus risk mitigation and assumption management efforts to better manage the projected total cost. In the long term, the UCOR team's goal is to incorporate an information feedback loop to help improve the accuracy of key model attributes, such as the standardized cost information. This way, by design, the model output should improve over time and thus help the model mature into both a credible scenario tool and a standardized project planning resource. The initial model capabilities may be narrow, but with time and effort it may prove to be a timely and cost-effective tool. (authors)
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗