Bob Cronin, a project manager in the Facilities Division, is in charge of tearing down the Bevatron, one of the world’s greatest particle accelerators, including the approximately 123, 000-gross-square-foot steel-frame building that housed it. But before even the first workers or cranes were allowed on the site to hoist concrete shielding blocks weighing as much as 30 tons, years of planning took place to protect the environment as well as the health and safety of demolition workers and Lab employees alike.
Given the historical use of the Beavatron and the fact that asbestos and lead were commonly used in building materials in the 1950s and 1960s, Cronin and the Lab’s demolition contractor, Clauss Construction, used a combination of past information and new evaluations to analyze known risk and hazards, including asbestos, radiation, lead, and mercury exposure, to set up appropriate hazard controls. This was no small feat for a project that began with 13,000 tons of shielding blocks having some degree of induced radiation, a similar amount of metal that needed to be managed as radioactive waste, an estimated 1,000 tons of contaminated concrete in the slab and foundation of the building, and a still yet unknown amount of soil contamination beneath this slab due to accessibility issues.
Clauss Construction was selected as the contractor due to their familiarity with the DOE Integrated Safety Management process, and integrating all the disciplines of Environment, Safety and Health. This included considerable input from the Berkeley Site Office in establishing protocols for successfully and safely tackling these challenges.
The result of all this planning? A “phenomenal” safety record marked by over 50,000 safe work hours performed by Clauss Construction subcontractors in just over a year. Cronin attributes their remarkable record to the Lab and subcontractor’s willingness to work as a team to a common goal, “We have the same thing in mind: To send everyone home safe and uninjured”.
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