The Energy Department has awarded a 10-month, $4.8 million task order to Tennessee-based Aerostar Perma-Fix TRU Services for test bed initiative (TBI) work at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the cost-plus-fixed-fee task order under an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract that involves off-site treatment and disposal of Hanford low-activity waste (LAW).
The task order includes completing the design for the in-tank pre-treatment system (ITPS); fabricating, testing, and installing the system; providing waste treatment for about 2,000 gallons of low-activity waste; and preparing a final report on the test bed initiative.
This work would be Phase 2 of the test bed initiative. Phase 1, finished in December 2017, involved grouting and disposal of 3 gallons of waste from underground tanks at Hanford. The 2,000 gallons of waste would be sent to Perma-Fix Northwest near Hanford for grouting before eventually being shipped to the Waste Control Specialists low-level waste disposal facility in Texas.
The test bed initiative also calls for a third phase in the future, which would treat upward of 100,000 gallons of waste.
The TBI is being pursued as a treatment alternative for the large portion of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of tank waste that is believed to be low activity. The Waste Treatment Plant being built at the former plutonium production complex was never planned to be large enough to treat all of the low-activity waste at Hanford.
