New Cleanup Deadlines Announced for Hanford Nuclear Site

The U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE), Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a landmark agreement yesterday regarding the ongoing cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Site.

The deal proposes an achievable course for cleaning up the millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste that remain in the underground tanks.  Mediated negotiations began in 2020 regarding the state of site cleanup.  The signed agreement  proposes new and revised cleanup deadlines in the Tri-Party Agreement and Washington v. Granholm consent decree.

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Some of the proposed modifications are:

• Maintaining existing timeframes for starting treatment of both low-activity and high-level waste by immobilizing it in glass via vitrification
• Using a direct-feed approach for immobilizing high-level waste in glass, similar to the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste Program
• Building a vault storage system and second effluent management facility to support treating high-level waste
• Retrieving waste from 22 tanks in Hanford’s 200 West Area by 2040, including grouting the low-activity portion of the waste for offsite disposal.
• Designing and constructing 1-million gallons of additional capacity for multi-purpose storage of tank waste
• Evaluating and developing new technologies for retrieving waste from tanks

The proposed changes won't be finalized until they go through a 60 day public comment period.  that comment period begins may 30th and USDOE, Ecology, and the EPA will hold public meetings in Washington State and Oregon.

The agreement will be final once the public comment period is complete, a response to comments is issued, the federal district court accepts the proposed amendments to the consent decree, and the agencies implement the proposed revisions.

Producing plutonium at the Hanford Site left roughly 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste stored in 177 underground tanks. USDOE is responsible for the Hanford Site cleanup. Ecology and EPA are regulatory agencies overseeing the cleanup under the aforementioned Tri-Party Agreement, a judicial consent decree, and various permits.