The environmental prime at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state shipped 15 drums of sodium waste generated by old research reactors to Tennessee for treatment, the agency said this week in a press release.
At the end of February, Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup shipped the mixed low-level sodium waste by semi-truck to the at Diversified Scientific Services (DSSI) facility in Kingston, Tenn., a DOE spokesperson said by email Thursday.
After the waste is removed from the drums, treated and repackaged at DSSI, it will be returned to Hanford by Aug. 30 for disposal, according to the spokesperson. The sodium will be disposed of at Mixed Waste Trench 31 low-level burial grounds near the Central Waste Complex in Hanford’s 200 West Area.
According to the Tuesday press release, the waste has been stored since 2012 near Hanford’s Fast Flux Test Facility, a former sodium-cooled nuclear research reactor that operated from 1982 to 1992. The reactor was decommissioned in 2009.
Sodium must be handled with care because it is corrosive and flammable.
“Our planning and preparation to ship this difficult-to-handle waste have ensured a safe treatment and disposal pathway for the sodium,” Andy Wiborg, DOE Office of Environmental Management project director at Hanford, said in the agency’s press release. “Completion of this project eliminates a key risk on the Hanford Site.”
