RICHLAND, Wash. - The Washington State Department of Ecology has approved an operating permit for the Analytical Laboratory at Hanford ’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) Project. The laboratory supports EM’s plans to begin treating tank waste through its Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) vitrification approach.
Approval of the permit marks the first major WTP facility to complete all phases of the state’s mandated permit lifecycle - from initial design, through groundbreaking and construction, and now to an approved operating permit issued.
The key function of the laboratory is to confirm the glass produced by the WTP Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility meets regulatory requirements. The laboratory will analyze approximately 3,000 WTP process samples each year. Samples of incoming low-activity tank waste will be analyzed to confirm the correct glass-former “recipe" to produce a consistent, high-quality glass form.
“An approved Analytical Laboratory operating permit is another key step toward achieving the start of DFLAW as soon as possible," said Jason Young, the laboratory’s federal project director at EM’s Office of River Protection. “We appreciate Ecology’s timely review and approval of the permit as we get closer to WTP facility startup and commissioning."
The DFLAW approach is expected to enable treatment of low-activity waste to begin in advance of a court-ordered milestone date of 2023. This approach will increase available double-shell tank space and provide valuable lessons learned to aid startup and commissioning of other portions of the WTP.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
