The fiscal 2023 Department of Energy budget request for the Hanford Site in Washington state advances plans for a new $23-million fire station within Area 400, according to justification details posted online last week.
The Joe Biden administration proposes $3.1-million toward the new fire station during the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The budget for fiscal 2022 includes $15.2 million for the project that could ultimately cost $23 million, according to the budget request.
Design work has been completed on the new fire station and it could be built by the end of 2024. The new facility could slash response time to the new Waste Treatment Plant that should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into a glass form by December 2023. DOE has directed the site’s infrastructure prime contractor Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, to handle the work.
The Hanford Site currently has four fire stations located in various areas across the 580-square mile site, and the Area 400 station would allow consolidation of two aging sites, according to a Monday email from a DOE spokesperson. As Hanford cleanup progresses, the remaining work is becoming more centralized, allowing for the consolidation of old fire stations, the spokesperson said.
“Emergency response assets for this specific area of the Hanford site are currently deployed in a facility originally commissioned in 1965 that is in a rapidly deteriorating state of operational habitability,” according to the Office of Environmental Management budget document. “Critical facility systems, including cooling, gas boiler, and building electrical circuits are failing and additional failures may render the facility uninhabitable.”
Currently, fire station alarm systems are unreliable and force firefighters to rely on individual battery powered radios in their sleeping quarters to alert them for a nighttime response, according to the document.
The facility can provide overnight housing for up to 12 individuals and enough space for six emergency vehicles and administrative facilities for around-the-clock operations, according to the document. DOE began pondering the new fire station in 2016 and initially anticipated that the project would be below DOE’s minor construction threshold of $20 million.