The Washington state Department of Ecology has opened an investigation after being notified by the contractor for the Hanford Site’s waste tank farm that some liquid had been poured into the soil in central Hanford in August.
The liquid was in four used containers that had sat out in the weather for a couple years covered with tarps. An investigator for the state agency has sampled soil in the areas where the liquid was dumped, finding no contamination, said Randy Bradbury, Ecology spokesman.
The notification was not timely, according to Bradbury. Tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) reported the incident in September, he said.
Ecology plans to complete the report before its 150-day deadline, possibly by the end of the year. The agency has not yet reached a conclusion on the matter, Bradbury said.
Workers at the tank farm planned to load the four containers with waste, possibly to be encased with grout. The dumpster-like containers, which are called roll-off containers, likely were used in the past to truck low-level radioactive waste to Hanford’s Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. The waste would have been packaged in a plastic wrapper inside the container. The containers might then have been cleaned when they were set aside.
When tank farm employees began working with the first two containers in August, they found they held some liquid, possibly from precipitation that had collected. The workers dumped the liquid into the soil in central Hanford after building up a ridge of soil to contain the liquid in one spot. They checked the soil and found no contamination. However, when they did the same with the next two containers, they found some small spots of contamination, below reportable levels. They dug up the saturated soil and packaged it in four 55-gallon drums. Contractors are allowed to discharge storm water, which would be rain and snow melt.
“We don’t believe there was any violation of state regulations,” said Peter Bengtson, spokesman for the tank farm contractor. He said WRPS took a thorough and conservative approach in its response, but will work with the Department of Energy and Ecology to improve processes. WRPS does not believe there was any harm to the environment, he said.
