The top fed at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management expects the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state to begin operating “within weeks.”
Office of Environmental Management (EM) senior adviser William (Ike) White made the comment Monday during an online meeting of the chairs of the chairs of EM advisory boards across the weapons complex.
Middle-to-late January was the timeline projected by Hanford’s DOE site manager Brian Vance during a Wednesday online meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board.
The $164 million modular Tank-Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project, installed by subcontractor AVANtech, will remove radioactive cesium and undissolved solids from tank waste at Hanford in preparation for converting low-level waste into a glass form once the Waste Treatment Plant built by Bechtel starts operation by the end of 2023.
The DOE cleanup office said in a press release last month agency readiness assessments on the project were complete. The DOE has said it hopes to pre-stage about 1 million gallons of treated waste from the TSCR project in a double-shell tank before the Waste Treatment Plant starts operation. This fall, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said DOE still had some issues to address at the TSCR project.
