Decommissioning of the TA-42 plutonium contaminated incinerator facility

During 1978, a plutonium (239Pu) contaminated incinerator facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, was decommissioned. The project involved dismantling the facility and burying the debris at an on-site radioactive solid waste disposal/storage area. Contaminated soil from the 5000 m2 area was also buried. The facility was constructed in 1951 to incinerate 239Pu contaminated wastes. It was later used as a decontamination facility. The major features included a 185-m2 floor area control building, incinerator, cyclone dust collector, spray cooler, venturi scrubber, air filter bank, ash separator, and two 140 000-liter ash storage tanks. Six-hundred cubic meters of debris and 1200 m3 of soil contaminated with less than 10 nCi 239Pu per gram of soil were buried at the Laboratory disposal area. Five cubic meters of 239Pu contaminated ash residues containing more than 10 nCi 239Pu per gram of waste were packaged and stored to meet the Department of Energy's 20-year retrievable storage criteria. The operation consumed 80 work days and 5800 manhours at a cost of $150 000. This report presents the details concerning decommissioning procedures, the health physics, the waste management, the environmental surveillance results, and a cost breakdown for the operation