Fernald Feed Materials Production Center
Fernald came under criticism in 1984 when it was learned that the plant was releasing millions of pounds of uranium dust into the atmosphere, causing major radioactive contamination of the surrounding areas.
[5] These nuclear reactors were located at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and at Hanford in the state of Washington.
[6][7] The plant was located in the rural town of Fernald, which is about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, and occupies 1,050 acres (425 hectares).
Refining uranium metal was a process requiring a series of chemical and metallurgical conversions that occurred in nine specialized plants at the site.
[9] Releases from the Fernald site to the surrounding area resulted in exposure to community residents included ionizing radiation, soluble and insoluble forms of uranium, and various other hazardous chemicals.
Community residents may have been exposed to these substances through ground water pathways, soil contamination, and air dispersion of emissions from the site.
[10] Two separate medical surveillance programs, for former workers and community residents, have been funded by settlements of class action litigation against National Lead of Ohio, a contractor for the Department of Energy.
Samples of whole blood, serum, plasma and urine were obtained from all FMMP participants at the time of the initial examination, and over 100,000 one-ml aliquots of these biospecimens have been stored at −80 °C since then.
The drums were lifted to the top of the building by a skip hoist where they were emptied into a surge hopper that feeds the magnetic separator and jaw crusher.
The three Gallagher samplers in series each took a 10% cut of the stream fed to it, producing a sample approximately 0.1% of the original lot size.
In addition to sampling incoming ores this plant reconditions 30 and 55 gallon drums used to transport and store radioactive materials onsite.
There were so many fumes that on high humidity days during the summer there appeared to be an orange cloud encasing this building and anyone just walking past would experience a sensation as if he had wandered into a swarm of bees.
[dubious – discuss] The resulting "UNH" (uranium nitrate hexahydrate) material pumped out of the vats was then processed through extraction to purify the solution.
The UNH solution was passed through a multistage liquid-liquid counter current tower with tributyl phosphate and kerosene to extract the uranyl nitrate.
The uranium trioxide material was then pneumatically removed from the denitration pots and packaged out in hoppers with a capacity of 3.6 metric tons or 55 gallon drums.
The bed of UO2 was moved through the hydrofluorination furnace by ribbon flight screws and contacted counter-currently by hydrofluoric acid vapors.
The conversion of UF to metal was accomplished by the thermite reduction of green salt with magnesium in a refractory lined steel reaction vessel.
Finally, the solidified uranium metal (derby) was separated from the slag and liner materials in a sequence of manual and mechanical operations that take place at the breakout station.
Whatever the cause, the building would fill with radioactive smoke along with a real probability that molten uranium metal would come pouring out of the bottom of the furnace.
The loaded crucibles were then mechanically positioned in induction melting and casting furnaces that were designed to give a maximum of flexibility and a minimum of human exposure to radioactivity.
"Ingots from Plant 5 and MCW Mallinckrodt Chemical Works were bloomed into billets and then rolled into rods that were straightened and machined to finished reactor slug dimensions.
The finished product consists of either hollow or solid uranium slugs, designed for both internal and external cooling during pile irradiation.
The material discharged from the furnace was lifted to a surge hopper and then as needed was sent through a roll mill and ground to -325 mesh size.
It was then fed into carbon brick digestion tanks where the uranium was dissolved in hydrochloric acid containing a little sodium chlorate.
In addition to the wet system described, several furnaces were installed in the plant for massive metal oxidation, pyrohydrolysis, drying, chip and sludge combustion, etc.
The two basic processes, hydrofluoric acid precipitation of thorium fluoride and induction de-zincing and melting, which were used to start the plant, were not able to produce a pure metal.
However, improvement in production techniques permitted the eventual development of an oxalate precipitation process capable of producing pure thorium metal.
Fluor Fernald completed their portion of the cleanup in October 2006, 12 years ahead of schedule and 7.8 billion dollars below the original cost estimate.
Thousands of tons of contaminated concrete, sludge, liquid waste, and soil were removed from the site and replaced with man-made wetlands and greenery.
These cleanup operations, along with restrictions on establishing new wells in areas exceeding water contaminant limits, will continue for the foreseeable future.
