Washington state, the Department of Energy and the public interest group Heart of America Northwest, have reached a settlement on how the government agencies should respond to leaks of underground radioactive waste tanks at the Hanford Site.
The formal settlement agreement was filed with the Washington’s Pollution Control Hearings Board Wednesday, the parties announced. This agreement is separate from the broader agreement on Hanford cleanup that DOE and the state sometimes refer to as the holistic agreement.
The non-profit Heart of America Northwest filed a notice of appeal with the board last September that challenged an agreed order between DOE and the Washington State Department of Ecology.
While this week’s agreement does not amend the earlier order between the state and feds on tackling leaking single-shell tanks 241-B-109 and 241-T-111, it provides “clarity” to that order, Ecology said in a press release.
The newly-announced agreement says DOE will obtain a third-party expert review from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of a key technical evaluation included in the order. The technical evaluation calls for DOE to seek ways to speed up the waste removal for tanks T-111 and B-109, the state said.
The evaluation will look at removal of drainable liquids through technologies such as enhanced salt well pumping and an In-Tank Pretreatment System, according to the agreement with Heart of America Northwest. An in-tank pretreatment system is installed on a tank. Portions of the system could remove contaminants prior to exiting the tank using an ion exchange process similar to that used on Hanford’s Tank-Side Cesium Removal Project, said a DOE spokesperson Thursday.
The evaluation would also look at transporting the removed liquid waste by truck to an existing double-shell tank, according to the settlement. The evaluation, which should be done by year’s end, will include a workshop with expertise from Pacific Northwest National Lab as well as chemist Stephen Agnew of Washington State University.
