The last major activity is underway at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant before demolition starts on the facility’s large, central building and attached annexes. In late September a crane removed the topmost part of the roof of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility, a fifth and sixth floor rising above the rest of the plant. Since then a crane has lifted two column glove boxes out of the facility. If the wind is quiet this weekend, part of the roof of the portion of the facility that stands four-stories tall will be removed to provide access to more glove boxes.
Washington state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in July gave the Department of Energy a one-year extension on its deadline to have the plant down to slab on grade, pushing it out to September 2017. At that time Hanford officials expected to begin demolition as soon as late August. But over the summer they changed plans for eight of the glove boxes remaining in the Plutonium Reclamation Facility, which was one of two facilities added to the original main plant. Those eight glove boxes, along with four gallery glove boxes that are part of the structure of the building, were planned to be removed during demolition.
The new plan to lift eight glove boxes out through the roof with a crane before demolition starts “removes additional hazards from the building prior to demolition,” said Tom Bratvold, vice president for PFP for cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. The glove boxes are all on the fourth floor or higher. They include three column glove boxes and five miscellaneous treatment glove boxes, including a 22-foot-long conveyer glove box. Removing the glove boxes that are not part of the structure of the building should also reduce the time needed for demolition. The four gallery glove boxes share a wall with the canyon of the facility and cannot be removed until demolition.
Plans call for demolition of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility to begin in late October or early November. Demolishing the facility and the adjoining Americium Recovery Facility, which share a wall, is expected to take about 13 weeks. The main processing area of PFP should be ready for demolition a month after that. Work continues there to remove some ventilation equipment, the highly contaminated vacuum piping system and asbestos. Demolition operations“will proceed at a safe, deliberate pace,” said Tom Teynor, DOE project director. The building could be demolished by June or July.
The Plutonium Finishing Plant was used primarily to turn plutonium in a liquid solution into buttons the size of hockey pucks or a powder to be shipped to nation’s weapons production facilities. Some smaller buildings on the Plutonium Finishing Plant campus already have been torn down.
