The Washington state Department of Ecology has slated a Dec. 7 public meeting on changes to the dangerous waste permit sought by contractor Bechtel National for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) being built at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.
Bechtel is seeking a Class 2 modification to its existing permit from the state. The revision would allow it to install auxiliary equipment such as pipelines, valves, and inline components in order to improve the Effluent Management Facility at WTP.
A 60-day comment period on the revision started on Nov. 6 and runs through Jan. 5, 2018.
A notice from the Ecology Department says the equipment is identical to other gear that has already been installed at the plant, which is being built to treat up to 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste generated during Hanford’s former life as a plutonium production facility for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
The Effluent Management Facility is one of the projects that must be completed at WTP in order for Bechtel to move ahead with its plan for direct feed of low-activity waste, or DFLAW, as soon as possible. The EMF will handle the liquid secondary waste, or effluent, generated by the LAW Facility melters and other equipment. Bechtel aims to begin feeding the mostly liquid tank waste directly to the WTP for vitrification as early as 2022.
The Effluent Management Facility should be operating in 2021, said Bechtel spokesman George Rangel. The facility is estimated to cost $371 million, according to the fiscal 2018 DOE budget request.
The public meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. local time on Dec. 7 at the Richland Public Library. Written comments on the proposed permit modification can be filed with Ecology by Jan. 5 here. It is unclear when a decision will be made on the permit modification.
For additional information, contact Dieter Bohrmann, with the Office of River Protection, at [email protected].
Workers Cleared After Latest Vapor Scare at Hanford Facility
Medical authorities have given the green light for three workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state to return to work after receiving precautionary medical checks for odors reported Tuesday inside the 271-AW instrument building.
That’s according to Washington River Protection Solutions, a Hanford contractor responsible for radioactive and chemical waste stored in 177 underground tanks near the center of the Hanford Site. WRPS is owned by AECOM and Atkins, with AREVA as its primary subcontractor.
There were five other workers that reported odors but declined medical evaluation. Workers were not in an area that requires use of a supplied-air respirator, WRPS said in a news release.
They were preparing an empty storage box to receive tank waste samples from containers when they evidently smelled an odor similar to glue, according to the contractor. They evacuated the facility and access to the area was then restricted.
Shortly after the incident, industrial hygiene technicians checked things out using special instruments and failed to identify anything above background levels, WRPS said.
Subsequently more air samples were taken and sent to the lab for study. The process did not reveal any concerns and access to the area has been restored the contractor said.
Chemical gases or vapors in Hanford’s waste storage tanks can occasionally enter workers’ lungs. Chemical vapor emissions may be affected by factors ranging from the weather to work chores that involve disturbing the tank waste.
Draft Solicitation for Hanford Occupational Medical Services Contract Coming Soon
The Department of Energy will release a draft request for proposals for the Hanford Site Occupational Medical Services Contract between Dec. 6 and Jan. 6, the agency announced ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
The contract is a follow-on to the six-year contract awarded to HMP Corp., located near Hanford in Kennewick, Wash., in June 2012. It was then valued at about $99 million.
The winning contractor should be prepared to provide services to more than 9,000 Hanford workers, according to the latest announcement. Workers may be employed by DOE, by its prime contractors, its small business contractors or by subcontractors. Services may include medical monitoring, worker qualification exams, first aid, following ongoing site-related health issues, employee counseling and health promotion, vaccine services, travel medicine and hearing protection. DOE said in when it released a request for information from interested companies in 2016 that the new contract could cover about $15 million of work annually.
Hanford C-Tanks Appear Empty to Regulatory Standards
Waste appears to have been emptied to regulatory standards at the first Hanford Site tank farm, should tests show work has been adequate.
Washington River Protection Solutions has used three technologies to their limit, to empty the 16th and final tank in the C Tank Farm. Regulatory requirements require that either three technologies be used to their capacity or all but about 2,700 gallons of waste be removed from the 530,000 gallon capacity tank. That would leave about 1 inch of waste if it were spread evenly over the bottom of the tank.
DOE estimates that about 4,500 gallons of waste remain in Tank C-105 after using three technologies to empty waste from the tank. Video inspections of the interior of the tank are planned to verify the amount of waste remaining. In addition, the waste will be sampled to provide information to the Washington state Department of Ecology, the regulator for the Hanford tank farms, about the amount of technetium-99 in contains.
“It’s taken longer than we had hoped, but still we’re very happy to see retrievals completed at the first Hanford tank farm,” said Alex Smith, manager of the Department of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program. The first C Farm tank was declared empty at the start of 2004.
“While this marks a major milestone in the Hanford cleanup, it also highlights the huge amount of work still to do,” Smith said. “Yet, we know Energy has been learning lessons as it progressed through C-Farm retrievals. We’ll work to ensure that those lessons are applied moving forward, so retrievals proceed at a much faster pace.”
Retrieval of waste at the C Tank Farm was considered a demonstration project, with multiple waste retrieval technologies tried there. DOE plans to next empty tanks in the AX and A Tank Farms.
