The Department of Energy plans to shut down Hanford's Waste Receiving and Processing Facility early in 2009 for an undetermined length of time.
The temporary shutdown is part of a plan announced by DOE in March to start sending some Hanford waste to the Idaho National Laboratory for processing and then shipment for disposal at a national repository in New Mexico.
About 1,000 drums of radioactive Hanford waste that would otherwise be processed at Hanford will be sent to Idaho in an initial campaign. DOE plans call for about 9,000 of the drums eventually to be sent to Idaho.
About 40 people at the Waste Receiving and Processing Facility, or WRAP, would be affected, according to DOE.
But because the work will be paid for out of the Hanford budget, sending the shipments to Idaho will not mean a decrease in Hanford jobs next year, said Dave Brockman, manager of the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office.
Money saved on processing the waste can be used for other Hanford work, such as retrieving drums of waste temporarily buried in trenches in central Hanford, Brockman said.
"The goal is to focus on retrieval," he said "The big reduction in risk comes when we get it out of the ground."
In the '70s and '80s, waste potentially contaminated with plutonium was temporarily buried at Hanford until the nation opened a national repository for transuranic waste in New Mexico, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP. At Hanford, transuranic waste is typically laboratory equipment, protective clothing and other debris contaminated with plutonium.
DOE plans to send 55-gallon drums of waste to Idaho that already have been placed inside 85-gallon overpacks because they were severely corroded when they were retrieved from the ground.
The drums picked for shipment will include only those free of waste, such as aerosol cans, that are not approved for shipping or acceptance at WIPP. Those drums have to be repacked manually at Hanford.
The overpacked drums can be compacted at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Facility in Idaho, which can compress several 55-gallon drums into a 100-gallon drum.
The process is faster and more efficient than handling the drums at Hanford and the result will be drums that make better use of limited repository space at WIPP, according to DOE.
At Hanford, WRAP is expected to be placed on cold standby starting in February or March while Hanford workers focus on the Idaho shipping campaign. The 51,300 square-foot facility in central Hanford is used for inspecting, treating and repackaging drums and small boxes of low-level radioactive waste mixed with hazardous chemicals and for processing transuranic waste.
From a control room, an employee characterizes the contents of drums by using an x-ray and measuring radioactivity. Once characterization is finished, the drum is labeled and prepared for transportation for permanent disposal.
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Hanford official to lead DOE field office
Hanford official to lead DOE field office
Hanford official Joe Franco has been named to lead the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for the Department of Energy.
Franco, the DOE assistant manager for the Hanford river corridor, will become manager for the DOE Carlsbad Field Office.
The office oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, the nation's repository for transuranic waste generated during the research and production of nuclear weapons. It's where Hanford's transuranic waste, typically debris contaminated with plutonium, is sent for disposal in rooms mined out of an ancient salt formation 2,150 feet below ground.
Hanford regulators will postpone some cleanup deadlines
Hanford regulators will postpone some cleanup deadlines
Hanford regulators have agreed to let some interim environmental cleanup deadlines slide at the nuclear reservation to focus on the highest priority work, given the realities of the federal budget.
The changes are expected to allow work to continue to demolish the Plutonium Finishing Plant, which the Department of Energy heard during public comments should be a priority.
The new plan also retains the focus on completing cleanup along the Columbia River by 2015 and cleaning up contaminated ground water beneath Hanford.
Temporary storage proposed for vit plant waste
Temporary storage proposed for vit plant waste
Hanford contractor officials are proposing a temporary storage system for Hanford's treated high-level radioactive waste that easily can be expanded, given uncertainties about the nation's plans for a national waste repository.
Washington River Protection Solutions formed an independent review team that is recommending a new Hanford building large enough to store as much high-level radioactive waste as the Hanford vitrification plant is expected to treat in a decade. But if needed, more vaults could be added.
The initial plans do not include a shipping facility. Given austere federal budget conditions, it makes sense to wait to add that when the nation is ready to ship the waste, said Tom Fletcher, Department of Energy acting assistant manager of the Hanford tank farms.
Work begins to empty another Hanford tank
Work begins to empty another Hanford tank
Hanford workers have begun emptying another underground tank of radioactive waste at Hanford, making this the first time in more than a decade that two tanks are being emptied simultaneously, according to Hanford officials.
Pumping on Tank C-112 began last week, helping end the year on a positive note, despite Hanford workers not completing waste retrieval for any tank in 2011. A tank has not been emptied to regulatory standards since spring 2007.
However, significant progress has been made to remove waste, said Chris Kemp, deputy project director for the Department of Energy. While getting the last of the waste out that is required to declare a tank empty to regulatory standards has been difficult, almost 2 million gallons of radioactive waste have been retrieved from single-shell tanks and transferred to newer, double-shell tanks to await treatment since 2002.
'Game-changing' large robotic arm removing waste at Hanford
'Game-changing' large robotic arm removing waste at Hanford
A large robotic arm has begun retrieving radioactive waste from one of Hanford's underground tanks, raising hopes that the slow and difficult work to empty tanks will become more efficient.
"We believe this new system will be a game changer for us and allow us to move more waste out of our tanks faster and at less cost," said Kent Smith, the tank retrieval manager for Department of Energy contractor Washington River Protection Solutions, in a statement.
The Mobile Arm Retrieval System, or MARS, already has changed how work is done at the Hanford tank farms, after Hanford workers cut the largest hole ever in a U.S. radioactive waste tank to install the system in December.
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