RICHLAND, Wash. - Workers at EM’s Hanford Site recently completed a major risk reduction effort at the facility that stores a significant portion of the site’s radioactivity.
The Richland Operations Office (RL) and contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CH2M) finished grouting six hot cells and other components at the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility (WESF). The facility stores 1,936 cesium and strontium capsules under water. It remained operational during the project.
“These improvements to WESF are necessary before transferring those capsules to dry storage," said Al Farabee, RL project director for waste management. “Moving the capsules to dry storage is safer and more efficient than the current underwater storage location."
Connie Simiele, the CH2M vice president overseeing the WESF operations, said the workers did an outstanding job.
“The team transitioned the innermost, highly contaminated section of an operating nuclear facility to a cold-and-dark configuration, and then wove grout lines throughout the facility, filling the hot cells, airlock, old duct work and filter pit with grout," Simiele said. “They did it safely, and all without disrupting the nearby capsules."
The grouting to stabilize about 300,000 curies of legacy contamination began in 2016, after the WESF team upgraded the facility’s ventilation system.
RL and CH2M are designing the dry storage and planning WESF modifications for the equipment necessary to transfer the capsules from water to dry storage casks.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
