The Washington state Department of Ecology plans to start taking public comment later this summer on a research and development permit application for a technology to reduce hazardous tank waste vapors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.
On Friday the state agency emailed out a 30-day notice of public comment on a Phase 3 research, development, and demonstration permit application for DOE to test Nucon International’s Thermal Oxidation System in the 200 East Area at the former plutonium production complex.
The comment period would start around Aug. 25 and run into early October, Ecology said in the press release.
There are roughly 56 million gallons of underground radioactive and chemical waste, left over from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons, in underground tanks at the Hanford Site. Over time, workers exposed to tank vapors have sometimes experienced headaches, coughing and shortness of breath, which led to litigation.
Phase 1, or off-site testing of the Nucon technology, finished in June 2017, according to a September 2018 settlement agreement that DOE and tank operations prime Washington River Protection Solutions reached with Hanford Challenge and Local 598 of the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters.
The parties then revised their settlement in February 2023 giving DOE more time to come up with controls to protect tank workers from harmful vapors. The revised deal said DOE would finish testing the Nucon technology in June 2027. The original settlement envisioned Phase 3 onsite testing being finished by Sept. 1, 2021.
Nucon’s Thermal Oxidation System is designed to pull gasses from single-shelled tanks, run it through various filters and remove most “chemicals of potential concern” such as benzene and formaldehyde, according to a 2019 report commissioned by DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at the Hanford Site.
