Central Facilities Area
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Copper- and lead-contaminated soil is removed from a cleaup site at CFA. |
The Central Facilities Area is now the main service and support center for the INEEL's desert facilities. Activities at CFA support transportation, maintenance, construction, environmental and radiological monitoring, security, fire protection, warehouses, calibration activities and a cafeteria.
Cleanup work at CFA is nearing completion
ICP workers are currently working on excavating the last contaminated soil to be removed from the Central Facilities Area so it could be taken to a new lined landfill near the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center.
The contaminated soil being excavated comes from a former disposal pond at the INEEL's Central Facilities Area and is contaminated with low levels of mercury. The pond received laboratory waste from the Chemical Engineering Laboratory between 1953 and 1969. Much of this waste was generated from experiments with the INEEL's liquid waste calcining process. The pond is an unlined surface depression that originally served as a borrow pit for construction at the CFA. It is roughly 500 by 150 feet, and seven to eight feet deep The pond also received runoff water until 1995. The removal of this soil from the Central Facilities Area marks the last of the physical cleanup work at that facility.
All that remains to be done once the soil excavation is complete is to backfill the excavated areas and monitor cleanup measures taken at the facility remain protective of human health and the environment.