Haddam Neck Power Plant Decommissioning Dredging

Located in Haddam Neck, Connecticut, the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant began commercial operation in 1968 and produced more than 110 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity during its 28-year operating history. In 1996, the Board of Directors voted to permanently close and decommission the power plant. After two years of planning and preparation, actual decommissioning began in 1998 and was completed successfully in 2007 with all plant structures removed and the site restored to stringent state and federal clean-up standards. As part of the plant industrial decommissioning project, CASHMAN dredged and improved the Connecticut River channel to a minimum depth of 5.6 feet to gain access to the power plant’s discharge canal. 


PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS 

• River channel material was loaded onto deck barges and processed for disposal as non-regulated dredge spoil. 
• Cleared channel of debris and downed trees from barge and loaded into containers for transport. 
• Dredged discharge canal to site barge slip, generating 3,000 cubic yards of spoil containing low levels of plant-related radioactive material. 
• Processed discharge channel material by screening, then dewatering with a pug mill and adding a small percentage of cement on a batch basis to meet saturated surface dry condition of no greater than 1% free liquid by volume. 
• After processing, material was loaded into B-25 boxes supplied by the plant and then onto a barge for transport; loaded containers weighed ~9,000 pounds each. 
• All non-regulated dredge spoil was transferred by barge to the Gateway Terminal in New Haven, CT for shipment to the ultimate disposal facility.