Hanford reaches milestone in cleanup of tanks
Last of liquid waste removed from aging containers
RICHLAND -- Workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation yesterday celebrated the completion of a project to remove millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste from old, leak-prone tanks.
State and federal officials called the achievement a major milestone in the decades-long cleanup of Hanford.
For 40 years, the Hanford reservation made plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons. Today, work there centers on a $50 billion to $60 billion cleanup, to be finished by 2035.
Much of the cleanup involves retrieving and treating 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from World War II and Cold War-era plutonium production. The liquid, sludge and salt cake sit in 177 aging underground tanks.
Most critical was the liquid waste in 149 tanks that had a single-wall construction, making them more susceptible to leaks as they aged. The single-shell tanks, built between the 1940s through the 1960s, were designed to last about 20 years.
About 67 of the tanks leaked radioactive brew into the soil, contaminating the aquifer and threatening the Columbia River less than 10 miles away.
Five years ago, the state complained about the slow pace of the tank cleanup. The state and the federal Energy Department then agreed to a court-enforced timetable for removing waste from the 29 remaining tanks, and more than 3 million gallons of liquid waste was pumped out of the tanks and transferred to newer, safer doubled-walled tanks.
The deadline for transferring the waste was Sept. 30.
"We knew they were literally a threat to the Columbia River, which I consider the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest," state Attorney General Christine Gregoire said at a ceremony yesterday. "I can't imagine a few years ago thinking we would be here today, but we are."
Continue reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
Hanford reaches milestone in cleanup of tanks