The Department of Energy said this week that rubble removal at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant in Washington state is resuming after an extended COVID-19 hiatus.
After taking down the last major processing facility at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), DOE said last February it anticipated removing all the rubble from the site by summer 2020. But that came weeks before the terms “coronavirus” and “COVID-19” would permeate the national lexicon.
Rubble removal and packaging was about 25% complete when the DOE Office of Environmental Management put the work on hold in March 2020, the agency said Tuesday in a press release.
DOE and Amentum-led contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Co. will remove, package and dispose of the PFP demolition rubble from the at Hanford’s onsite landfill, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, according to the release.
The DOE now expects the PFP remediation, including rubble removal, will be done this fall, an agency spokesperson said Friday. The DOE has and contractor Central Plateau Cleanup finished using grout to shore up the last of three old liquid waste disposal structures at the PFP complex that were in danger of collapse .
Crews will take soil samples from beneath the PFP building pads and eventually spread a protective cover over the area to minimize the effects of weather on the site, DOE said.
DOE shifted to minimal onsite operations for a couple of months between late March and June 2020, leaning heavily on telework. Some full onsite operations have yet to resume.
