One or more workers called a halt to work at the Hanford Site’s SX Tank Farm on Friday out of concern that an unexplained hole could indicate a problem with the integrity of an underground radioactive waste storage tank about 6 feet away.
Personnel at the Department of Energy cleanup site in Washington state can issue a stop-work order if they have a safety concern.
The hole, which was described as up to 2 feet in diameter, was discovered Thursday after the first of three rounds of planned soil compaction nearby. Preparations are being made to cover soil at the single-shell tank farm with asphalt to prevent precipitation from driving contamination left from previous waste spills and leaks deeper into the ground. The depth of the hole has not been determined.
Work was stopped and employees left the tank farm when the hole was discovered. “Workers took appropriate action when faced with an uncertain condition,” said Jerry Holloway, spokesman for Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), DOE’s tank farm contractor at Hanford.
The tank farm has 15 tanks, each with capacity for 1 million gallons of waste.
The stop work order is not expected to be lifted until WRPS conducts a video inspection of the tank near the hole to check for any unusual conditions and also attempts to lower a camera down the hole to learn more.
Past soil subsidences at Hanford have not necessarily had serious causes. In some cases, they occur when a buried piece of wood rots away and the soil caves in or a pipe or other underground material is removed without soil then being compacted.
