The US Department of Energy (DOE) has signed the paperwork needed to allow radioactive waste to be pumped into the Hanford nuclear site’s vitrification plant 23 years after construction began.
The DOE approval had been expected by the end of August before rumours that the project was being reconsidered. DOE faces a federal court deadline of 15 October to start turning radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at Hanford in Eastern Washington into a stable, but still radioactive, glass form.
Hanford is home to 177 underground waste storage tanks – a legacy of nuclear weapons development and nuclear energy research during World War II and Cold War. These include 149 single-shell tanks and 28 double-shell tanks ranging from 55,000 to 1.265m gallons in capacity. The tanks are organised into 18 different groups, called farms. Some 67 single-shell tanks are suspected of leaking or spilling radioactive waste into the ground in the past, and three single-shell tanks are known to be leaking now. Some of the oldest single-shell tanks have stored waste for more than 80 years.
In June workers at the Hanford site installed the last piece of pipe, connecting underground tanks and the waste treatment plant that will begin solidifying it in glass later this year. Bechtel National is designing, constructing and commissioning what will be the world’s largest radioactive-waste treatment plant. To date, Bechtel has operated the plant using only a non-radioactive waste simulant to test its processes.
The plant will use vitrification technology, which involves mixing the waste with glass-forming materials and heating it to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit inside large melters. This mixture will then be poured into stainless steel canisters to cool and solidify. In this glass form, the waste will be stable and impervious to the environment, and its radioactivity will safely dissipate over hundreds to thousands of years.
“After unacceptable delays, it’s good that DOE has finally heeded my call to sign the paperwork necessary to move forward with the final step of hot commissioning before treatment of radioactive waste can begin on 15 October,” said Senator Patty Murray in a statement cited by MLive.
“Congress has invested billions of dollars, and years of work with the state of Washington, to finally start turning nuclear waste into glass at Hanford for safe, long-term storage,” Murray said. “We’re talking radioactive waste that poses a threat to the Columbia River and the health and safety of thousands of residents in the Tri-Cities.”
The Tri-Cities are three closely linked cities (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland) in Washington State. The plant is one of the top employers in the Tri-Cities, with an annual payroll of about $350m and nearly 3,000 employees.
Earlier in September, it was rumoured that DOE planned to stall or cancel startup of the plant after Roger Jarrell, the principal deputy assistant secretary of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, was abruptly fired.
E&E by Politico quoted an unnamed source saying that Energy Secretary Chris Wright wanted to go in a “different direction” on treating Hanford’s radioactive tank waste. The same source reportedly said: “I think they want to kill WTP (the Waste Treatment Plant) altogether, even though it’s (close to being operational.)”
In response, Wright issued a public statement saying that DOE had not changed its commitment to environmental clean-up at the Hanford site. He ruled out the possibility of changes to plans for stabilising the waste held in the underground tanks. He said DOE would continue examining testing and operations to turn the least radioactive waste in the tanks into a stable glass form to ensure that the plan is “safe, cost-effective and environmentally sound”.
After Wright’s statement, Murray said she grew more concerned after a phone call with him. She said Wright admitted “that the Department of Energy is planning to curb hot commissioning at the Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford – an astonishingly senseless and destructive move and a threat to the entire nuclear cleanup mission at Hanford”.
She estimated the money spent to date on designing, building, testing and commissioning the vitrification plant at $30bn. Construction on the part of the plant that is required to start glassifying the most radioactive waste held in underground tanks is continuing. “Secretary Wright claimed that moving forward with hot commissioning is an issue of safety, but records do not corroborate his assertion,” Murray said.
Wright responded, saying that although there are “challenges,” DOE is committed to meeting the October deadline.
Washington Governor told a press conference that DOE would face legal action if it missed the deadline. DOE would lose the legal challenge, he warned. The Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator which must issue permits to allow the plant to start operating, has found no safety issue that would delay its startup, Casey Sixkiller, the state Ecology director told the same press conference.
That’s contrary to what Murray said Wright told her earlier in the week. Murray also has pointed out that the Project Management Risk Committee this summer unanimously endorsed moving forward to complete preparations to start up the plant, according to internal DOE records.
Startup of the plant is also required under the terms of a holistic agreement that DOE and the state of Washington spent four months negotiating to clarify the path forward for tank waste. It was finalised early this year. It calls for glassification of radioactive waste at the vitrification plant starting this year and also for some of the less radioactive waste in tanks to be turned into a concrete-like grout form.
