Hanford could be resting place for vessel’s nuclear reactors

RICHLAND, Wash. – The Navy is taking a second look at whether to send nuclear reactor compartments from the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Hanford for disposal.

In 2012, the Department of Defense found no issues that would prevent the defueled reactor compartments of the U.S. Navy’s USS Enterprise from being disposed of at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

But a new study is being launched after the Navy identified commercial disposal alternatives, which might cut costs.

Options are being considered to set a standard that the Navy may use for decades to come as the Navy’s Nimitz-class carriers also are retired, according to Government Accountability Office.

A GAO study in August estimated the cost of dismantling and disposing of the Enterprise at $1 billion.

An open house is June 27 in Richland to share information about possible alternatives for the disposal of the aircraft carrier, including its nuclear reactor compartments.

The USS Enterprise was commissioned in 1961 and served for more than 50 years, sailing 1 million miles.

It served during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.

At 1,123 feet long, it could hold up to 90 aircraft, but normally carried fewer.

It had eight nuclear reactors, unlike the Nimitz class aircraft carriers that were built next with two nuclear reactors.

The possible alternatives now being consider for the decommissioned aircraft carrier include disposing of compartments at a Hanford trench with other Navy compartments, a commercial disposal facility at Hanford, or at a disposal site elsewhere in the nation.

The Enterprise, which was decommissioned in 2017, is now being stored pier-side at Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. Nuclear fuel has already been removed.

It could be partially dismantled there or at another commercial site, with the remainder of the ship containing the defueled reactor compartments transported to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Wash.

The shipyard would package each of the compartments for the aircraft carrier’s eight reactors separately or in four double packages.

The reactor compartments would then be barged up the Columbia River to the Port of Benton in Richland and offloaded to be hauled out to Hanford.

Since 1986 the Navy has used a trench about seven miles from the Columbia River in central Hanford to dispose of about 130 reactor compartments and other reactor components of nuclear-powered submarines and cruisers.

In another possible alternative the eight reactor plants could be cut into segments and packaged into several hundred small containers for disposal at a DOE or other licensed commercial waste facility.

Possible disposal facilities include the US Ecology disposal site on leased land in central Hanford; the Energy Solutions disposal site in Utah; the Waste Control Specialists disposal site in Texas; or the Department of Energy Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

The first step in the planned environmental study is to ask the public what it wants included.

A comment period on the scope of the study is planned through July 15.