For the first time, Hanford radioactive tank waste has been sent off site for treatment and disposal.
Whether it could lead to a potentially faster and less-expensive way of handling some of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of waste held in underground tanks is yet to be determined.
A mere three gallons of the waste held in Hanford’s tanks has been sent to nearby Perma-Fix Environmental Solutions in Richland to be encapsulated in concrete-like grout.
It then is expected to be sent to a privately owned Texas waste disposal facility that was built to accept low level radioactive waste, including waste mixed with hazardous chemicals, from federal projects.
In September the Energy Communities Alliance, a nationwide coalition of local governments affected by Department of Energy projects, called for a new approach to nuclear waste management as costs for cleanup of Hanford and other sites stands at $257 billion.
The alliance, which includes Hanford-area local governments, advocated for DOE to take actions, including moving ahead on pilot projects, that it said could conservatively cut $40 billion from environmental cleanup costs.
One pilot project would demonstrate the feasibility of grouting Hanford tank waste and disposing of it off Hanford, with the initial step calling for grouting three gallons of low activity radioactive waste.
But the effort, called the test bed initiative, then had a hold placed on shipping the three gallons for treatment and disposal, the report said. By some reports the treatment of the three gallons had been on hold for about a year until this fall.
“Continued progress on the TBI (test bed initiative) is important to lay the foundation for future DOE decisions regarding the potential for treating, stabilizing and disposing of Hanford LAW (low activity waste) in a form other than glass,” the alliance report said.
“If the test proves successful,” the report continued, “the concept could allow tank closures at Hanford to be dramatically accelerated, reducing cleanup costs by billions of dollars and resulting in decades of schedule improvement.”
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