Senior officials from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, and the states of Oregon and Washington, were scheduled to discuss radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington today during a virtual meeting of a National Academies panel.
The Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academies was slated to hear those parties and others during a public meeting scheduled today between 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
Last year, the National Academies’ Committee on Supplemental Treatment of Low-Activity Waste at Hanford issued its report on methods in addition to low-activity treatment methods in addition to the Waste Treatment Plant being built by Bechtel.
The Hanford Site has about 56 million gallons of radioactive waste held in 177 underground tanks. Most of it is less-radioactive low-activity waste. The waste treatment plant will vitrify much but not all of the low-activity waste into glass, according to prior research overseen by the National Academies.. The National Academies was directed by Congress to work with the Savannah River National Laboratory to look at other potential options such as grout.
Among those scheduled to appear at the day-long session were: the Environmental Management (EM) office’s associate principal deputy assistant secretary for regulatory and policy affairs, Mark Gilbertson; Hanford’s site manager Brian Vance; Washington Department of Ecology’s nuclear waste program manager David Bowenl; and the Oregon department of Energy’s assistant director for nuclear safety, Maxwell Woods.
Public comment is welcome during the comment period or by sending an e-mail to [email protected].
