Welcome to the home page for the Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corporation (SMC) decommissioning project for the Newfield, New Jersey facility.  SMC is committed to implementing the safest and most environmentally responsible solution to the legacy environmental issues that exist on the site.

These pages contain information designed to keep stakeholders, including Newfield residents, and interested members of the public informed of this project and its status. Here SMC will post documents relating to the decommissioning, updates on the status of the project, and other information that we hope will assist interested parties in understanding the scope of the project, the approach being used, and its progress.

Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corporation's Newfield, New Jersey facility.

Background

Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corporation (SMC) ceased the production of alloy additives for the aluminum industry at its Newfield, New Jersey facility on June 30, 2006.  The company and its predecessors had manufactured products for the specialty metals industry at this location for more than 40 years.  However, due to competitive pressures, the company could no longer continue to compete with its domestically produced products.   SMC officials stated that, "over the past decade, international suppliers and producers have gained an advantage that has undermined pricing for SMC's domestically manufactured product, in part due to export credit programs in Asia." 

SMC fully recognizes its obligations to the Borough of Newfield, its citizens and the environment.  The company has a proven track record of dealing with legacy environmental issues on the site – for example, in April 2006, it spent $17.9 million to ensure the remediation of the site's non-radiological contamination.  Groundwater remediation is ongoing at the site in accordance with a remedial plan approved by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).  SMC also holds in trust and in letters of credit the funds to remediate all other environmental obligations. 

SMC is a subsidiary of Metallurg Holdings, Inc.  Metallurg Holdings, Inc., through its operating subsidiaries in the United States, United Kingdom, and Brazil, is one of the world's leading producers and marketers of highly engineered and technologically advanced metal additives, including ferrovanadium, aluminum master alloys, chromium metal and tantalum and niobium oxides.  Metallurg employs approximately 800 people worldwide, including 150 in North America. 

SMC Newfield had manufactured specialty steel and super alloy additives, primary aluminum master alloys, metal carbides, powdered metals, and optical surfacing products.  Raw materials used at the facility included ores which contained oxides of columbium (niobium), vanadium, aluminum metal, titanium metal, strontium metal, zirconium metal, and fluoride (titanium and boron) salts.  

One of the raw materials received, used and stored by SMC at its Newfield facility contained naturally-occurring radioactivity, and was therefore classified as "source material" pursuant to Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 40. This material, called pyrochlore, is a concentrated columbium (niobium)-bearing ore. Pyrochlore contains greater than 0.05% of natural uranium and natural thorium, thus its possession and use is licensable by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC).

SMC currently holds USNRC License No. SMB-743, which when issued allowed for the possession, use, storage, transfer and disposal of source material ancillary to metallurgical operations. Because metallurgical operations with pyrochlore permanently ceased a few years ago, SMC must now decommission the facility. In the interim, the radioactive materials license has been modified to permit possession only of the materials at the site pending approval of a decommissioning plan. 

The first step in the decommissioning process has been for SMC to prepare a proposed decommissioning plan, which includes input and suggestions from stakeholders, including Newfield residents, and other members of the public. The plan has been submitted to the USNRC for its technical review. Based on that review, the USNRC will prepare a draft environmental impact statement (EIS), which will be published for public comment. Based on those comments, the USNRC will prepare a Final EIS.  After the EIS is complete and a safety analysis is performed, the decommissioning plan will be approved and SMC's radioactive materials license will be amended to permit the implementation of the decommissioning plan (i.e., the license will authorize decommissioning activities only as specified in the approved plan). When decommissioning is complete and the USNRC has confirmed that all  the provisions in the plan have been met, the radioactive materials license will be amended again so that only possession and control of the residual radioactivity at the site will be permitted.

Questions about this project? Email SMC here.

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This page was last updated on December 12, 2007