Hiring has begun for the workers at the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant’s Analytical Laboratory who will support the plant’s commissioning prior to the start of operations by a 2023 federal court deadline.
A 3,300-square-foot laboratory has been established at Columbia Basin College (CBC) near Hanford in Pasco, Wash., to help prepare for work at the Hanford lab. The college lab, called the Analytical Methods Laboratory, will be used to train chemists and laboratory specialists to work at the Analytical Laboratory at the Hanford vit plant and to allow lab workers to refine the processes and procedures to be used during commissioning.
“Through our work here at CBC, we are preparing the future laboratory workforce for the plant’s cold and hot commissioning phases,” said Brian Reilly, vitrification plant director for contractor Bechtel National.
Bechtel holds the contract to design, construct, and then commission the nearly $17 billion plant, first with a nonradioactive waste simulant and then actual radioactive waste. Once commissioning is completed, an operating contractor will take over, initially running the plant for the treatment of only low-activity radioactive waste.
About 40 workers are expected to be hired for the lab for commissioning work, with hiring and training in an early phase, according to Hanford officials. The workers could be retained by the operating contractor. At the college they will work and train with waste simulants on equipment that Bechtel plans to eventually transfer to the Waste Treatment Plant for use with radioactive material.
The college is offering a commissioning technician course and will add laboratory technician training. A training room will be added to the CBC lab in January.
“This is a key step in preparations to bring the vitrification plant online, begin making glass and continue moving forward in our Hanford cleanup mission,” said Brian Vance, manager of the DOE Office of River Protection. “We are really in the phase where we are now starting that transition to operations.”
The Analytical Laboratory at Hanford will analyze about 3,000 samples each year, many of them tank waste samples to help prepare the “recipe” with the precise ratio of ingredients needed in the glass former added to each batch of waste for vitrification. Sampling also will be done to confirm quality and process controls during the vitrification process.
