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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Hanford N-waste treatment meets goal

Annette Cary Tri-City Herald

Hanford Nuclear Reservation workers have finished treating enough low-level radioactive waste mixed with hazardous chemicals to fill 31,346 drums.

The work was completed Thursday in time for the Department of Energy and its contractor, Fluor Hanford, to meet a legally binding Tri-Party Agreement requirement for treating that quantity of waste by the end of the year.

About half of the waste has been in storage awaiting treatment.

“Our goal is to get it out of storage and into safe and compliant disposal,” said Mark French, DOE federal project director for waste treatment and disposal. The Tri-Party Agreement requires the DOE to have the remainder of its similar stored, or legacy, wastes treated for disposal by June 2009.

The rest of the waste treated to meet the deadline includes waste recently dug up at Hanford and newly created wastes such as lab equipment and protective clothing contaminated during Hanford cleanup work.

“They really had to push hard to get the waste treated this year,” French said.

The year started with uncertainty over the Hanford budget until Congress passed a continuing resolution and Hanford officials learned exactly how much money they could spend on cleanup efforts.

The waste was treated for disposal with two methods of grouting. Some of the waste was compacted to reduce its volume, then encased in a cement grout mixture for disposal. Other waste had the grout mixed in, which stabilizes heavy metals so they don’t leach out after disposal.

“Our approach was to have as many providers as we could,” said Dale McKenney, Fluor Hanford vice president of waste stabilization and disposition. Fluor and the DOE looked for the best treatment method for different wastes and the best price.

Among subcontractors that grouted the waste were Perma-Fix and EnergySolutions.

About 2,340 of the almost 8,500 cubic yards of waste treated so far was from waste temporarily buried in central Hanford in the 1970s and 1980s until the nation could open a permanent repository for transuranic waste at Hanford. Much of Hanford’s transuranic waste is debris such as tools and protective clothing contaminated with plutonium.

About half of the buried waste dug up has been determined to be low-level radioactive waste, rather than transuranic waste.

Once it is grouted, it can be disposed of in lined waste trenches at Hanford’s Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. Recently, some of the waste has been sent to a commercial disposal facility in Clive, Utah.

Other waste treated to meet the milestone came from a site near Hanford’s H Reactor. Sludge and solid waste were placed in 55-gallon drums stored in central Hanford until they could be treated.

“This was a huge effort,” McKenney said. It required cooperation among multiple Hanford facilities, work groups and treatment plants outside Hanford.

In June, DOE and Fluor also met a November Tri-Party Agreement deadline to have 780 cubic yards of radioactive waste ready for disposal using thermal treatment. The low-level radioactive waste must be heated to destroy organic liquids, which typically are solvents.