The Washington state Department of Ecology took legal action against the Department of Energy Wednesday evening over the collapse of part of a nuclear waste tunnel discovered at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Uranium Extraction (PUREX) Plant the day before. As a Hanford regulator, the state agency issued an enforcement order requiring assessments, reports, and submission of a draft permit modification.
“I am extremely concerned about what happened yesterday and how the Department of Energy can give us confidence that this will not happen again,” Gov. Jay Inslee told reporters.
Hanford crews worked overnight Tuesday to lay gravel to build a road ending in a pad to support heavy equipment near the breach on the top of the underground tunnel. An excavator equipped with a scoop spent Wednesday lifting loads of sand with some soil up over the berm created by the tunnel and dropping the mixture into the hole to stabilize it.
The Department of Energy said it expected the work to continue into the evening. Air monitors, both state and federal, have detected no airborne radiation from the collapse and no radiation “shine” was measured above background levels, according to DOE. The tunnel is covered with 8 feet of soil and the soil that fell into the tunnel may have helped contain any spread of radioactive materials into the atmosphere, the department said.
“This alarming emergency compels us to take immediate action to hold the federal government accountable to its obligation to clean up the largest nuclear waste site in the country,” said Maia Bellon, Ecology Department director, when she issued the order of enforcement.
The enforcement order requires DOE to immediately begin determining the cause of the breach and assess whether there is immediate risk of further failure of either of the two tunnels storing contaminated equipment from the PUREX plant. A structural integrity evaluation is due July 1 to the state. The second requirement is to immediately develop corrective actions to ensure the safe storage of waste in both tunnels until a decision for the permanent disposal of the material is made. A draft report on corrective actions is due Aug. 1. The third requirement, due Oc.t 1, is to submit a draft permit modification to the dangerous waste portion of the state Hanford Facility Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Permit for the waste tunnels.
Nonessential workers north of the Wye Barricade at Hanford were told to stay home for both the day and swing shift Wednesday to allow stabilization of the breach. Officials had not decided Wednesday evening whether nonessential workers should report north of the Wye Barricade on Thursday.
