Plastic rolled out, ready to cover breached Hanford waste tunnel
Progress was made on Friday toward covering a breached Hanford tunnel holding radioactive waste, but the real work is expected to start Saturday morning.
Workers had rolled out a 400-foot-long piece of heavy plastic along the berm covering the PUREX plant waste tunnel with a roof that was discovered partially collapsed May 9.
It was anchored on the west side with concrete ecology blocks, weighing 3,800 pounds each.
Work stopped by early evening Friday, with plans to wait until after daylight Saturday to continue.
The 100-foot-wide piece of heavy plastic will be pulled up and over the tunnel and anchored with another row of ecology blocks along its east side.
The longer it takes to clean up the facilities that store mixed chemical and radioactive waste, the farther and farther they get past their useful lives, causing degradation and more risk of failing.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
The plastic is planned to keep radioactive contamination in the tunnel from becoming airborne if another section of the 360-foot-long tunnel should collapse. It also will keep rain from infiltrating the eight feet of soil on top of the tunnel, which would increase the weight on the tunnel’s roof.
The 20-by-20-foot breach already has been filled with a mixture of sand and soil as an initial stabilization measure.
The tunnel collapse was used as a reminder to President Donald Trump from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown of the need for adequate funding for critically needed environmental cleanup at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
“The May 9th incident should serve as an urgent reminder of the challenges in cleaning up the Hanford site that require a rededication of attention and resources,” the governors wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Trump, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The Trump administration’s budget request to Congress for fiscal 2019, including the Department of Energy budget for Hanford, could be released Tuesday.
“The longer it takes to clean up the facilities that store mixed chemical and radioactive waste, the farther and farther they get past their useful lives, causing degradation and more risk of failing,” the letter said.
Recent developments at the Hanford site have underscored the need for the federal government to dedicate sufficient resources.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
No one was injured and no airborne radioactive contamination was reported as a result of the partial tunnel collapse. But it temporarily halted nearly all cleanup work at Hanford, the governors pointed out.
The letter was sent before the governors learned Friday that DOE was investigating the possibility of a leak between the shells of one of Hanford’s double-shell tanks that has held radioactive and hazardous chemical waste since 1976.
Friday Inslee said the possible leak “elevates the urgency of the federal government to prioritize and fund all critical cleanup at this aging nuclear reservation.”
The two governors said in their letter that a new facility needed to allow some waste to be treated at the Hanford vitrification plant as soon as 2022 should be a budget priority. The plant will not be fully operating until 2036 because of technical issues related to some of the waste that has stopped construction on part of the plant.
Other priorities should be cleanup of highly radioactive waste spilled under the 324 Building just north of Richland, finishing cleanup of Hanford along the Columbia River and continuing to pump up and clean contaminated groundwater that is spread over 60 square miles, the governors said.
Annette Cary: 509-582-1533, @HanfordNews
This story was originally published May 19, 2017 at 6:56 PM with the headline "Plastic rolled out, ready to cover breached Hanford waste tunnel."