General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center

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The General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center, which General Electric privately owns and operates, occupies approximately 640 hectares (1,600 acres) in Pleasanton, Alameda County, California. The site is located approximately 64 kilometers (40 miles) east of San Francisco and approximately 11 kilometers (7 miles) southwest of the City of Livermore.

FACILITY MISSION

Past Department of Energy activities were responsible for contaminating the high­level Hot Cell No. 4 and the Emission Spectrograph Enclosure (glovebox) at the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center with transuranic and low-level waste. Both work locations have been idle for more than ten years, and the Department's current mission at the Center is limited to the cleanup of Hot Cell No. 4 and the decontamination and disposal of the glovebox. Characterization activities are currently anticipated to begin in 1997.

The Department plans to decontaminate Hot Cell No. 4, remove the alpha enclosure, and certify the cell as free of transuranic contamination. When restoration activities are complete, General Electric will use the facility for commercial purposes. As Departmental and General Electric records indicate, General Electric used the facility for commercial work; therefore, a cost sharing arrangement is appropriate for this project. The cost sharing assumptions for this estimate depend on time of usage and can be summarized as follows: the Department is responsible for 76 percent of the costs relating to Hot Cell No. 4 and 90 percent of the costs for the glovebox; General Electric is responsible for 24 percent and 10 percent of these costs, respectively.

However, General Electric has not agreed to these percentages, and a formal division of the costs will be negotiated in FY 1996. (General Electric has been contributing to costs since 1982, and this apportionment is based on their contributions to date.) The costs presented in this site summary are limited to the Department of Energy's portion; the costs allocated to General Electric are not included.

Hot Cell No. 4 is one of four hot cells General Electric constructed in 1958 for post­irradiation examination of uranium fuel and irradiated reactor components. All four hot cells are located in the Radioactive Materials Laboratory in Building 102. Between 1965 and 1967, Hot Cell No. 4 was decontaminated, equipped with a stainless steel liner to

contain plutonium, and dedicated to the study of mixed oxide fuel rods in support of the Atomic Energy Commission's fast breeder reactor development programs. In 1978, Hot Cell No. 4 was placed in a standby condition, but Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used it for six months in 1981 and 1982, and the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center used it for corporate business for less than ten days per year thereafter. The Department has had no involvement with the other three hot cells, and its liability is limited to Hot Cell No. 4.

The glovebox is a 4.9-cubic meter (6.6-cubic yard) stainless steel enclosure located in the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory in Building 103. The General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center installed it in 1968 for emission spectrographic analyses of mixed­oxide fuel specimens for the Department, but it has not been used since 1980.

There are no current or planned nuclear material and facility stabilization activities. All waste management costs fall within the scope of Environmental Restoration. There are no permitted treatment, storage, and disposal facilities at the site. Since there are no long-term surveillance and monitoring needs, General Electric is the owner and operator of the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center and is responsible for all landlord activities at the site. The Department's liability at this site will end following the last shipment of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in FY 2004.

FUTURE USE

The General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center is a privately owned commercial research facility. The Department will complete decontamination of Hot Cell No. 4 and disposal of the glovebox before leaving the site. This estimate assumes that General Electric will continue to use the site for Industrial/Commercial purposes following release of Hot Cell Number 4 in FY 2000.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION

The Environmental Restoration program is the only Department of Energy activity at the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center, and the scope for these activities includes all costs. See the Site Map for the location of environmental restoration activities.

Fuel examination activities in Hot Cell No. 4 and the glovebox resulted in radioactive contamination from various fission and activation products. Decontamination activities will generate two radioactive waste streams: 1) nonaqueous, remote­handled transuranic waste in the form of construction debris and equipment, which will be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and 2) nonaqueous low­level waste, also in the form of construction debris and equipment, which will be shipped to the Hanford facility.

Based on process knowledge, the likelihood of finding any hazardous components in either Hot Cell No. 4 or the glovebox is small. This estimate assumes that no hazardous low-level mixed waste will be generated at either location.

The Hot Cell Facility is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Health Services-licensed facility. Therefore, all decontamination and restoration activities must comply with the requirements and license provisions of both regulatory agencies.

General Electric has an extensive pollution control and prevention program that will be employed during the restoration of the hot cell and decontamination and disposal of the glovebox.

ASSESSMENT

Site and waste characterization of Hot Cell No. 4 and the glovebox have not been performed. Initial characterization of the two locations will begin in FY 1997 and will include radiological surveys to determine locations and concentrations of radioactive contamination. Assumed waste volumes and associated costs will be modified accordingly. Contamination is currently confined within the boundaries of Hot Cell No. 4 and the glovebox, and the potential health risk to site workers and the public is low.

DECOMMISSIONING

Preparations to begin decontamination operations, including the development of required documents, are scheduled to begin in FY 1997. The decontamination approach will use the simplest and most passive methods first, advancing to more aggressive methods if needed. Passive techniques include standard vacuuming, damp cloth wiping, and to a limited degree, hand washing/scrubbing operations. If these passive methods fail to reduce surface contamination to acceptable levels, more aggressive decontamination methods will be used. In order of preference, these decontamination methods include dry abrasive blasting with a vacuum, scabbing and scarification, and washing with ultra­high-pressure water.

Surveillance and maintenance activities for Hot Cell No. 4 will continue throughout decommissioning activities, because the facility must comply with the requirements prescribed in both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Health Services licenses. Examples of surveillance and maintenance activities include, but are not limited to, air monitor calibration and maintenance, air sampling and analysis, door cylinder replacement, window oil replacement, and high efficient particulate absorption filter changes. Upon completion of restoration activities, surveillance and maintenance activities will continue on facilities that are used to store transuranic waste until all the waste has been transported to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

All waste management costs fall within the scope of the Environmental Restoration program. There are no permitted treatment, storage, or disposal facilities at the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center. Low­level and transuranic waste will be packaged to meet the Department of Energy's Hanford or Waste Isolation Pilot Plant criteria as appropriate. The low­level waste will be transported to Hanford for burial. The remote­handled transuranic waste will be transported to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for disposal under applicable Department of Transportation packaging and transportation requirements.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is currently scheduled to accept remote-handled transuranic waste in FY 2002. A delay in the plant's ability to accept this waste will impact the cost and schedule of this project. The plant currently has a Waste Acceptance Criteria Revision 4 that is being updated to Revision 5. If the packaging criteria is altered significantly, General Electric will not be able accommodate the change, because a facility to do the repackaging is not available. Because of the nature of the material and the potential for contamination, another hot cell cannot be used.

Given the expected amount of transuranic waste, decommissioning activities are scheduled to occur over an extended period, with completion expected in FY 2004. On the basis of radiological surveys and site evaluations, the quantity of contaminated materials to be removed during decontamination activities is approximately 20 cubic meters (26 cubic yards) of transuranic waste. Removal of the steel liner will result in approximately 13 cubic meters (18 cubic yards) of low-level waste. This estimate assumes that low-level mixed and hazardous waste will not be generated as a result of decommissioning activities.

Direct Program Management/Support

Program management at the site supports the integration of environmental restoration activities at the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center and includes: tracking, collecting, and reporting costs; preparing programmatic documents; coordinating permitting and public involvement with appropriate units of the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center; managing personnel; funding independent verification contractor activity; acting as liaison with external regulatory agencies; and establishing, documenting, and maintaining technical, cost, and schedule baselines.

DESCRIPTION OF PERSONNEL

Current Composition

The table below represents the current skills needed to conduct the work at General Electric. The work force is made up solely of federal engineers. Because there is no contract for environmental restoration activities, no contractor personnel currently work on the site.

*The projection for Full-Time Equivalent employees are based on FY 1996 planning baselines (see Reader's Guide).

Site Management Structure

The Oakland Operations Office is the field organization responsible for implementing management plans at General Electric. General Electric operates the facility as a commercial facility. The Oakland Office is the managing office responsible for the Department of Energy's environmental restoration and waste management activities at General Electric. It is currently negotiating with General Electric to award a contract to perform the characterization activities at the site. No other environmental restoration contracts have been awarded at this time.

Future Full-Time Equivalent Needs

In FY 1999 and FY 2000, Full-Time Equivalent requirements will include approximately six personnel, including health physicists, project management personnel, and technicians required to complete the decontamination and decommissioning activities. From FY 2001 through FY 2004, the work force will consist of personnel experienced in the proper disposal and management of remote-handled transuranic waste.

FUNDING ESTIMATE

The following table presents estimated funding information for the General Electric site.

COMPARISON WITH PREVIOUS ESTIMATE

The 1996 life-cycle estimate of $23 million is seven percent lower than the 1995 life-cycle estimate of $25 million, after taking the 1995 expenditure into account. The projected duration of Environmental Management activities at the site is 26 years shorter than in the 1995 Baseline Report, ending in 2004. These changes can be attributed to General Electric's inclusion to the Department's Small Sites Initiative.