Delays at multi-billion first-of-kind Eastern WA radioactive waste plant

KENNEWICK – The deadline to glassify the first of the Hanford nuclear site’s 56 million gallons of radioactive waste will be extended under an agreement filed in federal court.

Work to build the massive Hanford vitrification plant began in 2002, and the previous deadline set in a federal court consent decree was Friday, Aug. 1, to demonstrate that it not only can turn radioactive waste into a stable glass form but that the glass met quality standards for disposal.

The extension, which is one of many through the decades, gives the Department of Energy 75 more days, extending the deadline to Oct. 15.

DOE and the Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator, agreed on the extension, which was filed in federal court Monday.

The extra 75 days will give DOE and its contractor, Bechtel National, more time to complete testing of equipment and facilities used in waste treatment at the vit plant, formally called the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immoblization Plant.

“The process of commissioning this first-in-kind facility is comprehensive and dynamic,” said Brian Harkins, the DOE acting manager for the Hanford nuclear reservation, in a statement.

“DOE has been working diligently with its contractors, and we anticipate that this will allow sufficient time to complete the complex commissioning process,” he said.

In a memo to employees Monday, he said that he expects the extra 75 days to be adequate for the remaining preparations to treat radioactive waste for the first time at the vitrification plant, but if remaining work takes longer than expected it will promptly notify the state.

The 75-day extension will also give the state Department of Ecology more time to finish its permits for the waste treatment, Harkins said in the staff memo.

The 580-square-mile Hanford site adjacent to Richland in Eastern Washington was used during World War II and the Cold War to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Among the waste left at Hanford is 56 million gallons of mixed radioactive and hazardous chemical waste from chemically separating plutonium from uranium fuel irradiated in nine now-defunct Hanford production reactors lining the Columbia River.

The waste has been stored in underground tanks, and many of them have been prone to leaking, for as long as 80 years.

The initial radioactive waste piped from a nearby tank to the vitrification plant’s Low Level Radioactive Waste Facility to be mixed with molten glass will be some of the least radioactive waste held in the underground tanks.

DOE must also begin treating the most radioactive waste in the tanks, high level waste, by a deadline of 2033 set in federal court after the Washington state Department of Ecology filed a lawsuit over missed legally binding deadlines in the Tri-Party Agreement for treating tank waste.

About 13,000 people work at the site.

When ground was broken on the vitrification plant in 2002 it was expected to begin demonstrating waste treatment as soon as 2007.

But designing and building a plant to treat Hanford’s complicated, nonhomogeneous mix of waste proved challenging.

Construction had multiple setbacks as questions were raised ranging from whether earthquake assumptions were reasonable to whether waste could be kept adequately mixed in some areas of the plant that would be too radioactive after operations began for people to enter to perform repairs on moving parts.

“While we’re eager to see the Low Activity Waste Facility begin operation, we recognize the importance of thorough testing of this system for performance and safety,” said Stephanie Schleif, the Department of Ecology, Nuclear Waste Program manager, in a statement Monday.

She said the state agency is working with DOE to continue oversight of the plant’s demonstration testing with radioactive waste and to issue the final permit to allow the final phase of testing.

The testing process, called “hot commissioning,” will introduce radioactive waste to the plant for the first time and verify that the glass produced with both of the plant’s melters meets quality standards to immobilize the waste for hundreds to thousands of years.

Ongoing treatment of radioactive waste is expected to start early this fall.

To date, the parts of the plant needed to treat the least radioactive waste have been tested using a nonradioactive waste simulant with the mixture heated in melters to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit.

During waste treatment, the glass and waste mixture will be poured into stainless-steel containers to harden and then the filled containers will be disposed of at a lined landfill in central Hanford. Containers of vitrified high-level radioactive waste are required to be disposed of in a deep geological repository at a site not yet selected by the federal government.