Hanford Waste Tanks Reviewed U.S., State Agencies Seek Changes To Combat Leaks And Explosions Of Radioactive Material

Hanford officials are proposing major changes in how they analyze the most dangerous radioactive wastes in huge underground storage tanks.

The proposed changes in the pact between the U.S. Department of Energy and its regulators would cover the 55 million gallons of wastes in Hanford’s 177 underground tanks. Some of those tanks have leaked, and some are threats to explode.

The wastes are leftovers from four decades of production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The proposed changes would push the deadline for determining the contents of all the tanks back three years. It would also change the focus for cleaning up the tanks, shifting it away from meeting quotas and toward dealing with the most pressing problems.

The wastes are a radioactive mishmash of known and unknown chemicals. Solids, salt cakes, sludges, liquids and vapors often coexist in the same tank.

Hanford plans to eventually pump out the tanks and convert the wastes into glass.

But before that can be done, samples must be carefully taken from the tanks and studied.

The Energy Department, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology originally agreed in the Tri-Party Agreement to have wastes in all tanks analyzed by 1999.

That has caused scientists to focus on meeting numerical quotas, rather than tailoring the studies to meet the most important safety and glassification needs, Hanford officials have said in recent months.

Consequently, DOE, EPA and Ecology officials propose to change the requirements to identify what tests are specifically needed and to concentrate on those analyses. Those requirements would be updated annually.

The new proposed deadline is 2002, said Suzanne Dahl, the Ecology Department’s tanks program manager.

At that time, the analyses are supposed to be completed that address current safety, operating and pumping out questions, she said.

A public comment period on the proposed change runs through Oct. 15. After the comments are received and digested, the three agencies will decide whether to make the changes.