Broken pumps that transfer sludge waste from the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) Defense Waste Processing Facility back into the site’s H Area Tank Farm are being replaced with used pumps from the site’s F Area Tank Farm, the Energy Department and prime SRS liquid waste cleanup contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) announced Wednesday.
The joint press release said the replacement pumps, which “mixed waste in Tank 7 in F Tank Farm for years,” would be installed at H Area Tank Farm “soon.” The replacement pumps are still being reassembled at Tank 22, which collects liquid from the Defense Waste Processing Facility. The facility turns liquid waste from the tank farms into more easily storable radioactive glass in a process known as vitrification. However, not all the waste is vitrified in its first trip through DWPF, resulting in a so-called recycle stream that is collected into Tank 22.
The press release did not say when the old pumps failed, or how much the swap would cost. DOE and its contractor pegged the cost of a new pump at about $1 million in the release, and hailed the swap as a money-saver.
An SRR spokesperson reached by email Wednesday had no immediate comment about the details of the swap, including its cost and the time frame for completion.
The SRS tank farms contain about 36 million gallons liquid waste left over from Cold War-era nuclear weapons programs.
