Hanford Waste Cleanup Is Easier Said Than Done Subcontractor Comes Under Fire As Work Takes Longer, Costs Rise

Moving 2,300 tons of highly radioactive waste from Hanford’s leak-prone K Basins to a new storage facility is taxing the ingenuity of one of the nuclear industry’s blue-chip companies.

The K Basins are two huge indoor pools, each filled with 1.3 million gallons of water to shield and cool 105,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel from the defunct N Reactor.

DE&S Hanford Inc., a subsidiary of nuclear power giant Duke Energy, has been subcontracted by Fluor Daniel Hanford to move the canisters into metal mesh baskets which will be stored in 14-foot-long canisters. The canisters then will be moved to a storage building under construction, where spent nuclear fuel from the K Basins and glass-encased liquid wastes from tank farms eventually will be stored in cavernous vaults.

Moving the spent fuel from the K Basins near the Columbia River to the new storage facility near the center of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s top priorities.

But the task has been a complicated one for DE&S Hanford, which took over from Westinghouse Hanford when Fluor was named the reservation’s primary contractor in October 1996.

“We have intensified our efforts in resolving these issues and putting improvements in place,” said DE&S Hanford President Tony McConnell.

The project’s completion date has been extended 19 months to 2003, and its estimated budget has jumped $266 million - from $814 million to $1.08 billion.

DE&S management of the project has been criticized by Fluor, the Energy Department and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which issued a “cure” letter last month threatening the company’s contract if improvements were not made.

McConnell said the company began making corrections even before receiving the Dec. 10 letter.

In an October report, the safety board concluded engineers were working independently of top management and upper management was unable to get a handle on it, said Charles Hansen, the Energy Department’s assistant manager for waste management.

Hank Hatch, Fluor Daniel Hanford president, said DE&S submitted a plan Dec. 30 to resolve the situation, and “we are very encouraged by it.” The company has reorganized and replaced several managers.

Hanford’s spent fuel project is unique in size and complexity, Hansen and Hatch both said.

DE&S, which has a track record in handling spent fuel storage elsewhere, was not prepared to deal with the intense, voluminous and complex scrutiny at Hanford, McConnell said.