Photo Archive, 2006

Plum Brook Sampling

In November 2005, NASA began work on an extensive off-site sampling program for traces of Cesium-137 in Plum Brook sediment. This effort involved collecting and analyzing more than 1,200 sediment samples from a 1.5-mile area adjacent to Plum Brook. The analysis was completed in early April and the results showed that the very low levels of Cesium found posed no health concern to area residents, including children and workers . For details, please click the URL for the Sampling Results Fact Sheet on this Project Update page and see the section on Measuring and Understanding Radiation Exposure. Below is a series of photos showing some of this sampling activity. For further information, please click on the link to the article in the October 2006 edition of our newsletter.

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Below is a series of four photos related to the Field Sampling.
A worker wearing yellow boots uses a shovel to take a sediment sample near Plum Brook.
Two workers take a sediment sample from the banks of Plum Brook. The worker to the left is standing on the bank and using a long probe to reach deep into the soil of the bank.
Two workers prepare to take a sediment sample. One worker, clad in a red shirt at the center of the photo, uses his hands to take a sample on the banks of Plum Brook. At the right of the photo, another worker holds open a plastic bag for the sample.
A worker wearing clear plastic gloves takes a sediment sample and crumbles it into a stainless steel bowl. Workers then bag and tag each sample for laboratory analysis.

Ongoing Characterization Work

NASA is continuing its efforts to characterize the existing radiation content in the buildings and on the grounds of the 27-acre Reactor Facility. By characterizing the existing radiation levels, NASA can determine how much decontamination efforts (of soil and concrete) is needed, such that all areas will meet strict cleanup levels at the end of the Decommissioning Project. Workers are using a variety of hand-held detection instruments to measure radiation content, especially in the concrete of the former quadrants and canals in the Reactor Building , where radiation content was found to be very low. Characterization has been completed or is taking place in several other buildings and structures, including the Service Equipment Building , the Reactor Office and Lab Building , the Primary Pump House and the Cold Pipe Tunnel.

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Below is a series of four photos related to the Ongoing Characterization Work.
In the photo to the right, several of the hand-held instruments used monitor and record radiation levels are shown. Clockwise, from the left, the instruments include a tan colored sweeper monitor, which looks similar to a vacuum cleaner head. Workers brush this sweeper over walls, floors and other surfaces. In the center is a tan and black colored meter that records radiation levels based on the sweeps. To the right is a small, white, hand-held computer terminal, into which monitoring data is recorded by punching in buttons on the terminal.
In the photo to the right, a Radiation Technology worker – wearing a black jacket that says “Rad Safety” on the back (in white lettering) as well as a safety helmet – uses the sweeper monitor on a wall in a quadrant of the Reactor Building, and looks at the resulting data displayed on her hand-held meter.
In the photo to the right, a radiation technology worker kneels on the “Lily Pad” level in the Containment Vessel of the Reactor Building , where the reactor was formerly located. Having “swept the floor” for radiation content, she is shown recording the data into her white, hand-held computer.
A worker in white protective gear monitors a wall in the Reactor Building from which asbestos has been removed. The asbestos has been removed from two circle shaped areas of the wall covered in light and dark plastic, in the center of the photo.

Hot Cell Equipment Removal and Decontamination

NASA removed fixed equipment from, and then successfully decontaminated Hot Cell #1 - the largest of seven rooms in the Hot Lab Building , where the results of highly radioactive experiments were analyzed when the reactor was operational. The rooms were made of concrete and stainless steel and heavily shielded (with walls four to five feet thick and leaded glass windows) and contained “manipulator arms” that enabled reactor workers to operate from outside the cells. Four 20-ton concrete slabs that had comprised the roof of the Hot Cell were removed, then decontaminated, surveyed as clean and sent to a demolition contractor who broke up the concrete and took it away from Plum Brook Station.

Workers also removed from the seven Hot Cells leaded glass, protective windows, each four feet thick and weighing more than 500 pounds, and is temporarily storing the glass in 55 gallon containers. Ultimately, NASA will ship the glass to the Energy Solutions (formerly Envirocare) licensed disposal facility as mixed waste, a combination of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW), and lead. Workers have also removed all equipment from the other Hot Cells, which are also being decontaminated.

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Below is a series of five photos related to the Hot Cell Equipment Removal and Decontamination
	Before	After
The photos to the right (Before) shows the Hot Cell gallery, which contained dark colored “manipulator arms” (shown at the top of the photo), which had enabled reactor workers to analyze experiments from out side the cells. In the photo at right (After), all these arms have been removed. The dark objects protruding from the walls are periscopes formerly used to see into the cells. The light rectangles at the center of the photo are covers to the large windows which formerly looked into the cells.

The photos to the right show a 20-ton roof slab from Hot Cell v#1 being lowered by the overhead crane (top of photo) into a quadrant of the Reactor Building for decontamination.
In the photo to the right, a worker in a red helmet is holding a diamond tipped drill (connected to hoses) in order to “scabble” the concrete, scraping away layers a quarter inch at a time until the concrete underneath is surveyed and found to be clean.
In the photo to the right, two workers in red protective gear - and respirators and masks - are shown removing a Hot Cell window frame. The worker at the left is using a vacuum hose to remove lead and wool that had been used as shielding between the frame and the concrete when the Hot Cells were constructed. The worker to the right holds a torch.

Decontamination of Embedded Piping

NASA is nearing completion on the decontamination and surveying of more than three miles of embedded piping – pipe systems surrounded by concrete, at least three feet and as much as 46 feet below grade – in Reactor Facility buildings. Most of the work is being done with a mechanical cleaning device that moves through the pipe and scrapes away contamination in the form of rust, which is then removed with a high-powered vacuum machine. In a few areas where mechanical means were not enough, the piping has also been cleaned using a hydrolaze, a powerful (20,000 pounds per square inch) pressure washer.

After cleaning the pipe, workers check the radiation levels and the effectiveness of the cleaning by using a probe connected to a remote camera and a radiation detector. The cleaned and surveyed pipes are then filled with grout to immobilize them. To date, well over two miles of embedded piping has been cleaned and surveyed within the Reactor, Reactor Office and Laboratory, Service Equipment, Fan House and Waste Handling Buildings . All embedded piping work is expected to be completed by the end of January 2007. NASA will then focus on cleaning and surveying buried piping, pipe systems encased in dirt, but not concrete.

To view larger images click on the thumbnail images.

Below is a series of four photos on the Decontamination of Embedded Piping.
Decontamination work is taking place at the minus 25 foot level of the Reactor Building . Two decontamination workers, wearing yellow, hooded, protective suits, use a vacuum hose to decontaminate embedded piping – the large, round stumps in the lower left of the photos. To the upper left of the workers is a camera monitor which allows workers to see into the piping. The entire work area is covered in yellow plastic.
Workers are decontaminating pipe and monitoring their progress in the minus 25 foot level of the Reactor Building . The worker to the left has inserted a vacuum hose on embedded piping while, to the right, another worker's hands are shown holding a wire coil probe with very a small remote camera on the end.
Two workers in white are shown on the first floor of the Service Equipment Building. The worker to the left is holding a probe to which a radiation detector has been attached. The worker to the right – in yellow protective gear – is cleaning the pipes, holding a hose connected a powerful vacuum cleaner.
Having completed embedded piping decontamination in three buildings, two workers in white are shown on the first floor of the Service Equipment Building . The worker to the left is holding a probe to which a radiation detector has been attached. The worker to the right – in yellow protective gear – is cleaning the pipes, holding a hose connected a powerful vacuum cleaner.

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