Kristine:

Of course, as a professional consultant in the field of facility
decontamination, I should opine that you should hire a professional to
oversee the project and develop a decontamination plan.  Failing that, 
we
generally first do a visual inspection, looking for dust or crystalline
buildups.  Of course, crystals are the major concern as they can be
high-energy materials.  If you had a concern about radioactive species, 
a
run with a field detector would be a good thing.  

If you're going to decontaminate the metal, there's no real reason to 
bother
checking all of it to make sure what's on it.  We would suggest using a
trisodium phosphate detergent (you can make it warm if you like), which 
-
although hard to find these days - is the only thing you really can use 
that
will address all of your concerns.  All of the wash and rinse water 
should
be stored in temporary tanks (Baker Tanks - Rain for Rent) and tested 
prior
to disposal.  It may need to be sent to an industrial WW treatment 
facility
for disposal.  Simply washing these materials and draining them into 
your
institution's sewer is a bad idea.  

As I mentioned above and will reiterate, there are professionals who do 
this
all of the time. Even if you have a workforce who can carry out a plan,
working with a consultant to develop a plan, having the plan approved by
your fire department and wastewater facility, and reviewing the
implementation of the plan on a regular basis are invaluable.

Regards,

Dave

DAVE EINOLF
Principal
Endeavour EHS, LLC
5750 SE Carlton Street
Portland OR 97206-6753
See our new website: www.endeavourehs.com=A0 

971.678.8111 (w)
912.717.1533 (fax)
dave**At_Symbol_Here**endeavourehs.com 



-----Original Message-----
From: DCHAS-L Discussion List [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of
Danowski, Kristine L
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 9:38 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [DCHAS-L] decommissioning fume hoods

DCHAS Listers:

My university is renovating an old science building and plans to
decommission and disassemble about 30 chemical fume hoods.  These hoods 
have
not been used for over three years.

For which chemical residues do we need to test the exhaust ductwork and
exhaust fans before disposing or recycling these items?  Since these 
fume
hoods were abandoned, no one is sure what was used in them.  The 
previous
owners are no longer at the university, so we can't check with them. I 
know
we should check for radioactive residues, perchloric acid, heavy metals, 
and
halogenated organics, but is there anything else specifically?  

How do we decontaminate the ductwork and exhaust fans?  One site I 
checked
mentioned washing with warm soapy water, but that was for the inside of 
the
hood.

Thank you very much.

KD
Please excuse the cross-posting

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