Washington Closure Hanford reached a new safety milestone of 7 million hours without a lost workday injury as its contract at winds down. It has been three and a half years since an injury on the job caused an employee of the contractor or its subcontractors to spend time away from work, the Hanford Site river corridor contractor announced Wednesday. Washington Closure’s work includes demolishing contaminated buildings, cleaning up waste sites and burial grounds, and managing Hanford’s on-site landfill, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.
Most recent work has focused on two challenging projects – cleaning up the highly hazardous 618-10 Burial Ground and its vertical pipe units and placing the 324 Building in maintenance status for future demolition. After a one-year extension to the contractor’s original 10-year deal, the contract will expire in September. Washington Closure has completed most of the river corridor cleanup, demolishing 324 buildings, cleaning up 572 waste sites, disposing of 11.6 million tons of waste in the landfill it manages, and placing two nuclear reactors in interim status.
Most of the remaining river corridor work and management of the landfill is expected to be assigned to current Hanford contractor CH2M Plateau Remediation Co.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management also noted Wednesday that roughly 1,700 waste drums from Burial Ground 618-10 have been retrieved and processed. Roughly 300 drums are still in the burial ground’s trenches, but will remain there until 94 nearby vertical pipe units with moderate- and high-level waste are remediated.
Washington Closure Hanford is a partnership of CH2M, Bechtel, and AECOM.
