Incoming Hanford liquid waste contractor plans January meetings

The BWX Technologies-led joint venture assuming responsibility for managing liquid waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has scheduled a couple of employee transition meetings for January.

The sessions, announced in a Nov. 20 post on the Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure (H2C) website, will be set for Jan. 15 at the HAPO Center in Pasco and Jan. 21 at the Three Rivers Convention Center, Kennewick. Both sessions start at 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time and could run up to two hours, according to the post.

H2C plans to use virtual and in-person meetings to keep current Washington River Protection Solutions employees updated on the transition “and answer as many questions as we can,” according to the post by H2C and its president Carol Johnson. The new contractor, a joint venture of BWXT, Amentum and Fluor, has said it wants to keep the existing workforce.

DOE started a four-month transition in October to the new liquid waste contractor at the Hanford Site. With options, the deal could be worth $45-billion and keep the BWX Technologies-led H2C on site for 15 years. The October transition began after a federal court upheld DOE’s second award to the group, following challenges by an AtkinsRéalis-led rival.

The Hanford Integrated Tank contract includes overseeing and closing underground tanks holding about 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste left over from decades of plutonium production for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

H2C will also eventually take over operation of the Bechtel-built Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at Hanford. The plant is supposed to start converting some of the less radioactive waste into a solid glass form by August 2025.

H2C is expected to take over Hanford liquid waste operations around Feb. 24, 2025, a spokesperson said.