Hanford contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company recently awarded Apollo Mechanical Contractors a $9.5 million contract for work on the site’s Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility.
Apollo’s job is to install equipment to transfer almost 2,000 capsules containing highly radioactive cesium and strontium from the water-filled Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility (WESF) pools to a planned dry storage site nearby.
Construction was set to start in February, according to a recent presentation to the Hanford Advisory Board by Gary Pyles, federal project director for DOE’s Richland Operation Office’s project and facilities division.
Intermech is expected to complete the work this summer on the Capsule Storage Area for the Hanford plateau prime, Central PLateau Cleanup Company, under a subcontract awarded in 2019.
The WESF pools have held the capsules since the 1970s. The capsules are being moved to prevent radioactive water from leaking into the ground. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2025.
“While the 1,936 cesium and strontium capsules are currently in safe storage, WESF is an aging facility,” Pyles said in this week’s press release. “Moving the capsules will enable the planned deactivation of WESF and will reduce the risk and significantly reduce the annual costs for storing the capsules.”
Last year, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes communities surrounding the Hanford Site, said the WESF pools were considered “the greatest risk in the nationwide DOE complex for a serious accident.”
