A contractor readiness review at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has concluded the Liquid Effluent Retention Facility is about ready to start operations as a hazard category 3 nuclear facility, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report.
The readiness review that occurred in Novemebr is designed to check to see if safety equipment is properly maintained and that Washington River Protection Solutions workers have the proper skills and know-how to run the facility, according to recent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff reports.
The Department of Energy plans to conduct its operational readiness review in January on the implementation of the Liquid Effluent Retention Facility nuclear safety basis, according to the DOE spokesperson.
Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions is expanding the Liquid Waste Processing Facilities at the former plutonium production site to support the Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste Program at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant being built by Bechtel.The DOE Office of Environmental Management has targeted startup for December 2023, although a budget official with the office recently said it could be early 2024.
Becoming a “Hazard Category 3” site requires development of a facility safety basis, a DOE spokesperson said in a Tuesday email. Following satisfactory completion of the DOE operational readiness review, the facility will get the agency’s green light to restart as a Category 3 site.
Generally speaking the DOE defines Category 3 as showing the potential for significant localized consequences. These are often non-reactor nuclear facilities with certain threshold quantities of plutonium or other hazardous radioactive materials
The liquid waste facilities treat, store and dispose of large amounts of liquid waste from the DOE nuclear cleanup property, according to a Hanford fact sheet. The Liquid Effluent Retention Facility is made up of retention basins designed to store liquid waste until it can be processed at the Effluent Treatment Facility. Ultimately, non-hazardous treated effluent is released into the environment, according to DOE.
There are currently three basins that store radioactive and hazardous liquid waste prior to going through the nearby Effluent Treatment Facility, according to DOE. A fourth basin has been built for additional capacity to support the Direct Feed Low Activity Waste operation at the vitrification plant.
Each basin is about the size of a football field and can hold about eight million gallons of wastewater, according to DOE.
