Mound Site [Miamisburg]
Date Established: 1948
Present Mission: The principal mission of the Miamisburg Environmental Management Project (MEMP), formerly called the Mound Site, is site cleanup and pursuit of commercial enterprise. Nuclear energy programs continue at MEMP with the development of radioisotopic thermoelectric generators (RTGs) for the National Aeronautical and Space Administration's deep-space missions.
Primary: Implement Mound 2000, an initiative to expedite the cleanup of MEMP.
Secondary: RTG assembly, disassembly, and testing.
Size: The 306 acre MEMP site contains approximately 130 buildings.
Employees: 1,074 contractor employees and 200 Department of Energy (DOE) personnel employed by the Ohio Field Office and the Miamisburg Environmental Management Project Office located within the same building onsite.
Annual Budget: The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) budget for fiscal year 1996 is approximately $94.2 million. Approximately $7.3 million of this budget is controlled by MEMP for technical projects with organizations other than EG&G Mound Applied Technologies, the management and operating contractor. The estimated budget for fiscal year 1997 is $90.3 million and fiscal year 1998 is $120.1 million.
Cognizant Secretarial Officer: The Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management became the cognizant secretarial officer in June 1995. The Office of Defense Programs (DP) had site responsibility prior to June 1995. The Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) also has programmatic interests at MEMP.
Responsible Operations/Area Office: Ohio Field Office (OH)/Miamisburg Environmental Management Project Office (MB).
Contractor: EG&G Mound Applied Technologies, Inc. is the management and operating contractor until approximately March 1997 when a new management integrating contractor will be selected. The new contract is expected to exceed $500 million, with a maximum duration not longer than nine years.
Principal Subcontractors: Science Applications International Corporation, Weston, Terran Corporation, IT Corporation, Parsons Engineering, ICF Kaiser, American Technologies Incorporated, EG&G Technical Management Company, and A-Plus.
Fissile Material: MEMP has 25.6 kilograms of plutonium in 236 separate packages, and residual quantities of U-233 in the Semi- Works Tritium Complex.
Mound was established as the first permanent Atomic Energy Commission facility in support of atomic weapons research when the site was first occupied in May 1948. The Dayton area had supported secret operations for the War Department during World War II. Known only as the Dayton Project, extensive chemical and metallurgical research had been done in the support of the Manhattan Engineering District. At the end of the war, that work was moved from facilities in Dayton to permanent facilities in Miamisburg. The plant (then called Mound Laboratory) was operated by Monsanto Chemical Company from its opening until 1988, when Monsanto decided not to seek renewal of its management contract. EG&G Inc. won the contract to run the facility and began its tenure in 1988.
Its primary mission was the process development, production engineering, manufacturing, surveillance, and evaluation of explosive components for the U.S. nuclear defense stockpile. It's secondary missions included nuclear material safeguard, radioactive waste management and recovery, the building and testing of nuclear generators, and the purification of non-radioactive isotopes for medical, industrial and agricultural research. In 1989, with the end of the cold war the Department of Energy initiated a reconfiguration process that called for the eventual closing of the Mound Plant and the removal of equipment and materials to other DOE sites.
The Miamisburg Environment Management Project (MEMP) site is located on 306 acres in southwestern Ohio, within the southern boundary of the Miamisburg city limits.
The principal mission of MEMP is site cleanup and pursuit of commercial enterprise. Nuclear energy programs continue at MEMP with the development of radioisotopic thermoelectric generators (RTGs) for the National Aeronautical and Space Administration's deep-space missions. The process of generating electricity through thermoelectric conversion using a radioisotope heat source was developed and patented at MEMP in 1954. Recent uses of the RTGs were in the Galileo and Ulysses spacecrafts, now on missions to Jupiter and the sun, respectively. Four other RTGs are being prepared for the 1997 Cassini mission to Saturn.
MEMP is the commercial supplier for stable isotopes for the Department of Energy (DOE), although this mission will not be at MEMP after fiscal year 1996. Stable isotope program activities have included the development of isotope separation methods for biomedical applications; molecular research; isotope separation research and development; stable isotope inventory program and worldwide sales; and isotope separation by chemical exchange. MEMP's current mission also includes recovery and purification of tritium from tritium-containing scrap materials for future use.
MEMP was involved in a number of weapon and non-weapon programs until the late 1980s, including research, development, and production of explosive detonators, timers, transducers, switches, firesets, nuclear components, and surveillance performed on various explosive and nuclear components of weapons taken from the stockpile.
Contractor activities at MEMP are managed by the Miamisburg Environmental Management Project Office (MB) at the direction of the DOE Ohio Field Office (OH), with programmatic direction provided by the Headquarters Office of Environmental Management (EM). There are approximately 1,074 contractor and 200 DOE personnel located at MEMP in 1996 employed by either OH or MB.
EG&G Mound Applied Technologies, Inc. (EG&G MAT) was awarded the management and operating contract by DOE in 1988. EG&G MAT is currently in a 6-month contract extension period until approximately March 1997, when a new management integrating contractor will be selected.
Action is ongoing at MEMP to establish an environment, safety and health (ES&H) management planning process. Elements of this process include the placement of ES&H contract reform language into the request for proposal (RFP) so that a qualified management integrating contractor is selected. The new RFP contains a maximum contract duration period of nine years, with a value expected to exceed $500 million. Expected deliverables include an accelerated cleanup of the MEMP site, phase-out of the site tritium operations, continuation of the site Isotope Power Systems operations, and an accelerated economic transition to privatized usage of MEMP facilities/assets.
In 1995, a decision was made to re-baseline plans for the environmental restoration program. This decision stems from the Mound 2000 initiative, which provides for expedited cleanup.
DOE and the City of Miamisburg have entered into lease agreements for some site buildings. The city, in turn, is subletting the property to independent businesses to encourage them to become part of a technology mall. Seventeen businesses and 145 business employees were on site as of November 1995. Legal agreements define delegation of responsibility between DOE, the contractor, Miamisburg Mound Community Improvement Corporation (MMCIC), and the commercial businesses.
 Mound Laboratory |
KEY FACILITIES
Semi-Works (SW/R) Tritium Complex
This two-story facility is used primarily for handling tritium. Four major operations are currently performed in the SW/R Tritium Complex: component development, component evaluation operations, tritium recovery, and materials analysis. The SW/R was constructed in 1950 and has undergone 13 major additions. One corridor of rooms in the adjacent building, Research (R), has been converted to tritium operations and, together with the SW building and Building 58, form the SW/R complex. While the complex is primarily a tritium facility, three additional areas exist. This facility will eventually be demolished as part of decontamination and decommissioning activities.
Technical (T) Building
The T Building was originally used to purify Po-210 for use in nuclear weapons initiators. The current mission is to support tritium programs for reconfiguration, safe shutdown, and remaining operations. The facility has also been used to extract radionuclides, to house the plutonium verification facility, and to store TRU materials. Since 1980, the KYLE (classified), Tritium Emission Recovery Facility (TERF), Hydrogen Isotope Separations System (HISS), and other tritium facilities large enough to handle multi- kilogram quantities were added to T Building. T Building is expected to remain in either operational or standby mode for several years. Special nuclear material (SNM), primarily Pu- 239, is stored in T-Building storage areas A and B prior to transfer to Building-38 for repackaging. The SNM is in the form of metal, metal oxide, residue, and/or combinations thereof; these materials are contained in sealed drums and other metal containers and are approximately 20 years old.
Building 38
Building 38 was originally designed to be a radiochemical processing facility for Pu-238, used in the oxide form as a fuel for RTGs. Building design began in 1965, and construction was completed in December 1967. The assembly and disassembly operations associated with manufacturing Pu- 238 heat source modules for RTGs is the primary operation conducted in Building 38. Other programs conducted in Building 38 include the assembly of three types of heat sources and two types of RTGs and general- purpose radionuclide handling. RTG and heat source assembly and disassembly are supported in the F-line operations and involve the Five-watt, High Power Generator Mod 3 and General Purpose Heat Sources (GPHS) programs. This work is funded by the Office of Nuclear Energy.
Building 50
Building 50 is an RTG assembly and test labboratory. Encapsulated Pu-238 fuel received from the primary encapsulating agency is loaded into graphite assemblies in Building 38 and welded into stainless steel containers. They are then transferred to Building 50 for fuel reduction and subsequent installation into electrical converters (which then form the RTG).
Building 22, Waste Staging Facility (WSF)
The WSF facility provides storage and staging for solid low-level radioactive waste (LLW) containers generated prior to offsite shipment. The facility can store up to 186 metal boxes, stage lined and unlined 30 gallon or 55 gallon metal drums with or without overpack, and stage closed wooded boxes that contain LLW. The drums are stacked on pallets. The transition to the WSF was completed in June 1995. Building 22, constructed in 1967, previously housed a property management warehouse, office spaces, and a test facility for glove box operations.
Building 72
Building 72 is used to store miscellaneous hazardous wastes generated at
MEMP until the wastes can be shipped off site for disposal. The wastes are
contained in steel drums, plastic drums, plastic and steel containers of various
sizes, and gas cylinders. Waste sampling, packaging, and repackaging of some
wastes; drum over packing; and container inspection and marking are also
conducted in this facility. The quantities of hazardous chemicals in the
facility can be up to 13,000 gallons. Building 72 is a steel-framed building
with metal panel siding on three walls.
