Chris Schneidmiller
WC Monitor
8/28/2015
The Department of Energy is pressing a contractor to address the recent spread of strontium particles from a burial site for highly radioactive waste at the Hanford Site.
A Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site report released this month said the DOE Richland Operations Office “issued a letter to the contractor stating their concern regarding the effectiveness of contractor actions to prevent recurrence of recent contamination spreads from the 618-10 burial grounds.” The office “requested to be informed of actions being taken to improve contamination control during remediation of the 618-10 burial grounds prior to the resumption of concreted drum stabilization activities,” according to the July 17 report.
In a June 26 report, the DNFSB staffers said minute particles of high-strontium contamination had been moved by wind both within an excavation trench at the cleanup site and at times out of the burial ground. It was not immediately clear how far the contamination had moved, or what amount of material was involved.
“The cause of the contamination spreads is distinct from the windborne plastic contamination earlier this year,” according to the June DNFSB report. “The facility has been performing minimal operations while the contractor attempts to address the situation.”
The Richland Operations Office and cleanup contractor Washington Closure Hanford said they were still preparing responses to requests for information about the contamination spread as of press time Friday.
The Department of Energy has cited the 618-10 and 618-11 burial grounds as being among the highest challenge cleanup efforts at Hanford. Both contain waste material produced in Hanford’s 300 Area, which performed research activities and created reactor fuel during the site’s tenure as a plutonium producer for U.S. nuclear weapons.
The 618-10 burial ground is roughly 6 miles north of the city of Richland. It is about 7.5 acres in size and holds 94 vertical pipe units (VPUs) and 12 trenches that were filled with highly radioactive waste in the 1950s and 1960s, according to a DOE fact sheet. In total, it is believed to hold 4,800 to 7,400 cubic yards of low- and high-activity waste, including tainted lab equipment, bottles, boxes, lighting fixtures, and other material.
Cleanup operations at 618-10 began in spring 2011.
