Hanford stabilized its final reactor basin in August, meaning all the water has been removed and the empty pool has been filled with grout.
Hanford’s K West reactor is the last one to be cleaned out, its outlying buildings demolished and to be sealed off. The site has nine shuttered reactors dating back to World War II and the Cold War along the Columbia River’s shore.
The oldest is B Reactor, which created the plutonium that was used in the Trinity and Nagasaki bombs in World War II. It is being kept intact as a museum. Seven other reactors have been sealed off at the site.
Hanford removed 2,300 tons of spent fuel from the K East and K West reactor basins — capable of holding 1.2 million gallons of water each — from 2000 to 2004. The fuel is now in a huge, dry, cavernous underground storage area in the middle of the site.
Removing the water and grouting the K West pool was a lower priority than dealing with the leaking K East basin, which is closer to the Columbia River, according to the Department of Energy.
Work crews removed the sludge in the K West basins by September 2019. The sludge was put in containers and is now stored in T Plant — a colossal, shuttered chemical processing plant — in the middle of Hanford. Hanford then sorted out and removed the remaining debris before removing the water and putting in grout.
According to the Tri-Party Agreement, all fluids and accessible hazards materials are supposed to be removed from the K West reactor building by 2027. Work to begin enclosing the K West reactor building is supposed to start in 2029. The sealing work — called “cocooning” by DOE — is supposed to be done by 2032.
