The April announcement from the Department of Energy that the B-109 tank is leaking at the Hanford Site in Washington state is not a cause for alarm, site manager Brian Vance said this week.
The single-shell tank is leaking at the rate of about 1,000 to 1,500 gallons per year, Vance told an online meeting of the Hanford Advisory meeting on Wednesday.
“The leakage from B-109 won’t reach groundwater whether pump-and-treat is active for at least 25 years,” Vance said. “Really, this is a minor contribution from a risk perspective to an area that is already heavily contaminated.”
This is a semi-arid area and there are mitigation efforts in place, Vance said, adding that it poses no additional risk to workers and the local environment.
The tank was removed from service in 1976 and was dewatered in an attempt to minimize potential contamination from the tank, Vance said.
The DOE continues to talk with the Washington state Department of Ecology about additional measures to minimize the impact of the leak, Vance said.
Under the Tri-Party Agreement, the DOE and the state must attempt to reach unanimous agreement about an appropriate response to a leaking single-shell tank, said David Bowen, who heads Washington Ecology’s nuclear waste program. Bowen spoke to the advisory board right after Vance.
If unanimous agreement is not reached, Ecology retains the ability to initiate an enforcement action directly under its Hazardous Waste Management Act, Bowen said.
Bowen’s boss, Ecology Director Laura Watson, has called the leaking tank a “serious matter.”
