The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Environmental Management has broken ground on the Advanced Modular Pretreatment System (AMPS) at the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington. AMPS, located in the 200 East Area next to the AP Tank Farm, is designed to significantly accelerate the cleanup of the site’s legacy radioactive waste.
“This groundbreaking is another important step in advancing Hanford’s cleanup mission,” said Hanford Field Office Manager, Ray Geimer. “The work we are doing today prepares the site for a higher-capacity tank-side treatment that will allow us to dispose of tank waste more quickly as part of our dual glass-plus-grout strategy.”
AMPS builds on the success of the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) System and the Waste Treatment and Immobilisation Plant (WTP), which operate in a direct, sequential relationship as part of Hanford’s Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) programme. TSCR acts as the pretreatment gateway that prepares the raw radioactive waste so that the WTP can safely process and stabilize it
The new facility will remove over 99.9% of radioactivity from the waste before vitrification or grouting and will enable Hanford to pretreat a combined 3.6m gallons of waste a year – three times more than today.
This is significantly more than the WTP’s maximum treatment capacity of about 2m gallons a year. By implementing a dual glass-plus-grout cleanup strategy, more waste can be treated and shipped out of Washington State, greatly accelerating cleanup. This will help Hanford complete the 200 East low activity tank waste mission 12 years sooner, by 2039, instead of 2051, saving taxpayers about $12bn.
“AMPS reflects the experience our teams have gained from designing, building and operating TSCR for the last four years,” said Ken Langdon, H2C President and programme manager. “By applying those lessons learned, we are delivering a system with higher pretreatment capacity to support WTP and grouting.” H2C – Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure – is the primary tank operations contractor hired by DOE to manage the retrieval, treatment, and eventual disposal of the 56m gallons of legacy radioactive waste at the Hanford Site.
Initial site work now underway includes demolition and relocation of existing utilities, installation of support trailers, and electrical and road work – all necessary to prepare the area outside AP Farm for placement of the AMPS.
The 56m gallons of radioactive and chemical waste is stored in 177 underground tanks, representing one of DOE’s largest environmental risks and most complex cleanup challenges. The waste is the result of decades of plutonium production that supported national security missions.
