Weapons Complex Monitor Mentions SEC in Recent Issue Highlighting their Participation on BJC’s Witherspoon Site Cleanup Project

Safety and Ecology Corporation (SEC) was mentioned in a recent issue of the Weapons Complex Monitor highlighting their participation on BJC’s Witherspoon site clean up project. SEC has provided RADCON support to BJC, including: Industrial Hygiene (IH) support, GPS surveys, sampling and analysis of soils, and support to waste operations. (Weapons Complex Monitor; November 24, 2008; Page 15)

AT OAK RIDGE . . . . WITHERSPOON SITES CLEANUP ALMOST COMPLETE
The biggest off-site cleanup conducted by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Operations Office is about to come to a close after four years of work and more than 15,700 shipments of waste between the Witherspoon cleanup sites in South Knoxville, Tenn. and DOE’s CERCLA landfill in Oak Ridge. Bechtel Jacobs Co., the department’s environmental manager in Oak Ridge, said the work should be finished in early 2009, possibly by the end of January. Te Witherspoon sites in the Vestal community of South Knoxville have been a long-running controversy, and DOE finally agreed to accept responsibility for the cleanup operations—with a price tag of about $35 million—after an enforced agreement with Tennessee’s Department of Environment and Conservation. Much of the radioactive scrap and other contaminated materials originally came from DOE’‘s Oak Ridge facilities in the 1950s and ‘60s. So far, about 235,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris have been removed from two Witherspoon sites off Maryville Pike. Bechtel Jacobs said that’s enough to cover a football field, including the end zones, to a depth of 100 feet. First Site Completed in 2006 Cleanup of the Witherspoon scrap operation at 901 Maryville Pike was wrapped up in 2006, and work is almost finished now at the second site just down the road at 1630. A five-acre landfill will remain in place at the 1630 site, Bechtel Jacobs said, but a cap on the landfill was repaired. Work at the Witherspoon sites has included demolition of 10 buildings (after asbestos was removed), scrap sizing and removal, excavation and removal of contaminated soils, some treatment of materials, installation of five monitoring wells and some work to restore a local creek channel to prevent future flooding in the area. The work at the Witherspoon site conducted by Bechtel Jacobs and subcontractors DEMCO, Washington Group, and Safety and Ecology Corp. BJC spokesman Dennis Hill said the truck shipments between South Knoxville and Oak Ridge the past four years have covered 1.4 million miles, with no citations.