Tri-Cities firm awarded $9 million in Hanford work to protect Columbia River
%20(1).jpg "Fowler General Construction of Richland previously built this asphalt barrier over the Hanford SX Tank Farm to protect groundwater from contamination.")
A Richland construction company has been picked for the fourth time to build a surface barrier over underground waste tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
Washington River Protection Solutions, the Hanford site’s tank farm contractor, awarded an $8.9 million subcontract to Fowler General Construction to build an asphalt ground cover over the U Tank Farm.
Construction should be completed late this year.
The U Tank Farm has 16 underground waste tanks holding a mix of radioactive and other hazardous chemical waste from the past production of plutonium at Hanford for the nation’s nuclear weapons program. Four of them are suspected of leaking in the past.
Fowler already has built three ground barriers over tank farms at Hanford to prevent rain and snowmelt from moving through the soil and driving contamination already there deeper toward the groundwater that moves toward the Columbia River.
The U Tank Farm barrier will be the fifth at the site.
“The barriers will remain in place until a final closure decision is made for the tank farms and are a critical part of the strategy to help protect groundwater at the site,” said Becky Blackwell, Department of Energy program manager.
The U Tank Farm barrier will measure 144,100 square feet. The U Farm tanks are all single-shell tanks, which are prone to leaking. They include 12 tanks, each with a capacity of 530,000 gallons, and four tanks with capacities of 55,000 gallons each.
DOE is working to empty 149 single-shell tanks, some holding waste since World War II, into newer double-shell tanks, until the waste can be vitrified or otherwise treated for disposal.
Fowler, founded in the Tri-Cities in 2004, has constructed multiple federal projects, both at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland and at Hanford, plus more than two dozen schools, other local government buildings, office buildings, hotels, apartment complexes and industrial projects in Central and Eastern Washington.
Washington River Protection Solutions, owned by Amentum and Atkins, has held DOE’s Hanford tank farm contract since 2008.
This story was originally published March 8, 2023 at 5:00 AM.