Federal Engineers & Constructors of Richland has been awarded a $9 million subcontract by Washington Closure Hanford to dig up debris buried during the Cold War near Hanford's H Reactor.

The subcontractor, FE&C, has considerable experience digging up waste sites along the Columbia River at the Hanford nuclear reservation, including remediation of the burial grounds near F Reactor and the B and C reactors. It also has done work to clean up the 618-4 and 618-5 burial grounds just north of Richland.

It was one of 17 small businesses prequalified to bid on the work and one of four that submitted bids. Its bid offered the best value to the government, said Washington Closure spokesman Todd Nelson.

The subcontract calls for FE&C to clean up 10 burial grounds and waste sites holding debris with hazardous chemical and radioactive contamination buried during H Reactor operations from 1948-65. The debris and soil to be removed are estimated to weigh 276,000 tons.

Washington Closure has completed work on the reactor debris burial grounds for F, B and C reactors and has done some work at burial grounds for the D, DR, K East and K West reactors. But the contractor is expecting the H Reactor burial grounds to have some anomalies.

In addition to being used to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program, H Reactor also was used to test new processes and equipment.

"We have to plan for the unexpected, given the limited information we have regarding the contents of some of the waste sites and burial grounds," said Mark Buckmaster, Washington Closure project manager for cleanup associated with the H Reactor, in a statement.

Although historical records are studied to determine what may be in the burial grounds, "experience tells us we must expect to find things not on existing inventory logs," he said.

In addition to contaminated soil, the H Reactor burial grounds are expected to include reactor hardware, process equipment and waste, laboratory equipment and waste, metallic waste and construction, and demolition debris, all with radioactive contamination.

Other hazardous materials may include lead, asbestos, mercury, PCBs and acid.

"As they excavate, workers will also be on the lookout for discolored soils, which could indicate contaminated soil that has been in contact with buried wastes," Buckmaster said.

Some of the material was dumped directly into unlined trenches and other debris may be found in drums or smaller containers. Any liquids or unexpected solids will need to be identified before they are packaged for disposal.

Most of the debris and soil will be sent to Hanford's lined landfill for low-level radioactive waste, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.

Washington Closure expects FE&C to have equipment and support facilities set up this summer and to start work soon afterward to meet a legally binding deadline under the Tri-Party Agreement to begin cleanup around H Reactor by Oct. 31. Work should be completed by March 2011.

In the last fiscal year, Washington Closure awarded nearly 90 percent of its subcontracted work to small businesses, it said. Its contract requires 65 percent of its subcontracted work to go to small businesses.