‘Getting it done.’ U.S. energy secretary marks milestone at Richland radioactive waste plant

New Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette got a closer look Thursday at Hanford projects to finally begin treating some of the 56 million gallons of toxic waste in underground tanks at the nuclear reservation.

Brouilllette cut the ribbon at one of the major facilities at the massive $17 billion vitrification plant.

The world’s largest plant to treat radioactive waste has been under construction for 18 years north of Richland.

“Today is a very visible milestone in the Tri-Cities,” Paul Dabbar, the Department of Energy’s under secretary for science, told the Tri-City Herald on Thursday morning.

It shows DOE is meeting its commitment to start treating some of the tank waste, said Dabbar, who is responsible for Hanford.

Brouillette and Dabbar were getting updates on the environmental cleanup work at the Hanford site on Thursday, then scheduled to be at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland on Friday.

Reducing risk

The centerpiece of Hanford cleanup is the 65-acre Waste Treatment Plant campus, and the Analytical Laboratory is the first major facility to complete construction.

“We’re getting it done,” said Dabbar. “This will be up and running and that will reduce risk.”

DOE is required by a federal court order to be treating low activity radioactive waste by the end of 2023, though there have been some construction delays because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We will be processing tank waste at Hanford ...,” he told the Herald. “I think that’s a monumental step for this community.”

The 56 million gallons of tank waste at Hanford are left from production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War. Some of the older underground tanks holding waste are prone to leaking.

The Analytical Laboratory will be used to determine the correct glass formulation “recipe” for each batch of waste piped from the Hanford tank farms to the vitrification plant.

Additional samples will be analyzed throughout the vitrification process to confirm production of a high-quality glass and good process controls.

The tank waste is highly variable and the glassified waste must meet regulatory requirements and standards.

The glassified low activity radioactive waste will be buried in a lined landfill in the center of the Hanford site.

Cesium removal

Brouilllette was also spending part of Thursday at AVANTech in Richland, a Hanford subcontractor responsible for designing and building a new, tank-side pretreatment system. It’s called the Tank-Side Cesium Removal system, or TSCR, pronounced “tisker.”

He was joined on the tour by U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers and Dabbar.

The system will separate some of the least radioactive waste out of some of Hanford’s tank waste so it can be treated at the vitrification plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility.

Initially, tank waste was planned to be separated into low-activity and high-level radioactive waste streams at a huge Pretreatment Facility.

The system that Brouillette saw Thursday is a work around, as construction on the Pretreatment Facility has been stalled by technical issues related to the high level waste it will handle.

Testing systems

Hanford contractor Washington River Protection Solutions has worked with AVANTech to design and build a system that removes the small amount of high level waste from the liquid portion of the waste that will be processed first at the vitrification plant. Other waste in the tanks is in the form of sludge or salt cake.

The liquid waste that will be treated at the plants Low Activity Waste Facility contains some solids and dissolved radioactive cesium — both high level wastes — as they come out of the tanks.

Testing of TSCR this spring used a nonradioactive waste simulant to confirm the system can remove radioactive cesium and solids as intended to provide a waste stream suitable for treatment at the Low Activity Waste Facility. It also has been tested with radioactive waste.

High level waste is planned to be treated eventually at the plant’s High Level Waste Facility.

Hanford workers have started construction of concrete pads near tanks at Hanford to hold the new pretreatment system, which is expected to be moved on site later this summer.

The low-activity waste stream TSCR prepares will be piped to the vit plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility to be vitrified into a stable glass form for disposal.

The Tri-City Herald plans expanded coverage of Brouillette’s visit online and the eEdition Saturday and in Sunday’s print edition.

This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 11:24 AM.