The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office said Friday May 1 that crews have finished emptying radioactive waste from the 23rd underground storage tank at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
The work is part of a long-running effort to move waste from old leak-prone single shell tanks to newer double-shell tanks.
Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure (H2C), a BWX Technologies-led contractor team, moved about 41,000 gallons of decades-old solid waste from single-shell Tank A-102 in the site’s East Area to a double-shell tank, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said in a press release.
In September 2025, Environmental Management announced the relocation of waste from the 22nd underground storage tank.
DOE said in the May 1 press release that waste removed from the 23 tanks to date totals about 3.4 million gallons.
“Safely retrieving waste from aging tanks is one of Hanford’s highest priorities,” said Hanford Field Office Assistant Manager for Tank Waste Operations, Mat Irwin, said in the release.
Hanford produced 74 tons of plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program between 1944 and 1989, DOE said. As a result, about 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste has been held in 177 underground tanks at Hanford. Last October DOE started converting some of the less-radioactive liquid waste into glass at Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant.