Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site have successfully moved the first batch of cesium and strontium capsules from wet to dry storage, the Washington state Department of Ecology said Thursday.
Within the next few years, all 1,936 of the highly-radioactive capsules, which make up a third of the total radioactivity at the Hanford Site will be placed into large concrete casks in outdoor storage, Ecology said in a Jan. 22 press release.
In other Hanford infrastructure developments, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said this week a new water treatment plant has come online at the complex.
The DOE contractor Central Plateau Cleanup began the first cask in November, and completed the first transfer this week, the state agency said.
Washington Ecology is the state regulator at the DOE site that once made plutonium for national defense. The cesium and strontium are contaminated leftovers from the plutonium production days. The contaminated wastes were placed into the capsules in the 1970s and stored underwater at the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility.
“This is a significant step forward for safety at Hanford,” Governor Bob Ferguson said. “Thank you to the workers performing this complex and important work. Transferring these capsules of waste to safer, long-term storage will help protect workers, communities and the environment for generations to come.”
DOE faces a September 2029 deadline to move all the capsules from the underwater pools to more stable dry storage.
Congressional appropriators have told DOE to work with the Department of Defense to investigate making strontium-90 from some of the capsules being stored at Hanford.
“Transferring these capsules to safe dry storage is a top priority for the state and is integral to the goal of cleaning up Hanford and protecting the environment and surrounding communities,” said Stephanie Schleif, nuclear waste program manager for the Washington Department of Ecology.
Hanford is DOE’s most contaminated environmental cleanup project and there has been a lot going on there in recent months. The Bechtel-built Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which has been decades in planning and construction, came online in October. It is converting some of Hanford’s less-radioactive liquid tank waste into glass form. Hanford’s tank contractor is planning to use a concrete-like grout for some of the less radioactive tank waste.
Meanwhile, this week DOE announced the new Central Plateau Water Treatment Facility has come online. The new water treatment plant can treat 3.5 million gallons of water a day to support the Waste Treatment Plant.
Leidos-led contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) awarded the construction contract for the 10,000-square-foot water treatment facility to Richland’s Fowler General Construction Inc. HMIS will manage the facility,