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GAO report describes cleanup progress at Moab Mill Site
A new report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office states that the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) has disposed of more than 16 million tons of radioactive and hazardous waste from the Moab Mill Site. While cleanup continues at the Cold War–era uranium ore processing site in southeastern Utah, a plan for the next phase of groundwater remediation is still needed, according to the GAO.
John R. Weeks
Nuclear Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | March 1976 | Pages 348-355
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT76-A31517
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The lnconel-600 tubing in operating pressurized water reactor (PWR) steam generators has developed leaks due to intergranular stress corrosion cracking or a general wastage attack, originating from the secondary side of the tubing. Corrosion has been limited to those areas of the steam generators where limited secondary coolant circulation and high heat flux have caused impurities to concentrate. Wastage or pitting attack has always been associated with local concentration of sodium hydrogen phosphates, whereas stress corrosion has been associated with local concentration of sodium or potassium hydroxides. The only instance of stress corrosion originating from the primary side occurred on cold-worked tubing when hydrogen was not added to getter oxygen, and LiOH was not added to raise the pH of the primary coolant. All U.S. PWR manufacturers are now recommending an all-volatile treatment of the secondary coolant, whereas many plants operated until recently using a phosphate treatment. Experience in operating plants has shown, however, that removal of phosphate-rich sludge deposits is difficult, and that further wastage and/or intergranular stress corrosion can develop; the residual sodium phosphates gradually convert by reaction with corrosion product hydroxides to sodium hydroxide, which remains concentrated in the limited flow areas. Improvements in circulation patterns have been achieved by inserting flow baffles in some PWR steam generators. Inservice monitoring by eddy current techniques, as recommended in U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulatory Guide 1.83, is useful for detecting corrosion-induced defects in the tubing, but irreproducibility in field examinations can lead to uncertainties in interpreting the results.