RICHLAND, Wash. - Workers at the Hanford Site met a yearly groundwater-treatment goal nearly two months early, reducing risk to the Columbia River and shrinking the size of contaminated areas, or plumes, of groundwater.
EM’s goal was to treat 2.2 billion gallons of groundwater by the end of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) met this key performance goal seven weeks ahead of schedule, and has removed more than 90 tons of contaminants so far this fiscal year.
Hanford officials say the keys to this year’s success in treating groundwater have been putting worker innovations into practice and improving treatment systems while keeping them running well.
“We continually look for ways to make improvements and ensure our groundwater treatment network continues performing well," said Michael Cline, federal project director for cleanup of soil and groundwater for EM’s Richland Operations Office.
One employee innovation was reusing containers of activated carbon that filter volatile organic compounds out of the air in treatment tanks. Recycling the tanks decreased potential waste and is a cost avoidance.
“From maintenance, to operations and engineering, the teams have worked great together to continually improve performance and safely treat more groundwater," said John Rendall, vice president of the soil and groundwater remediation project at CHPRC.
Five pump-and-treat systems along the Columbia River remove a toxic chemical, hexavalent chromium, from groundwater, while a large pump-and-treat facility on the center of the Hanford Site removes more than a half-dozen contaminants, including carbon tetrachloride and radioactive constituents like uranium. The facilities pump contaminated groundwater up through wells and transfer it to treatment systems where contaminants are removed, before the treated water is returned to the aquifer through injection wells.
The groundwater contamination resulted from operations to produce plutonium from the 1940s through the end of the 1980s. The discharge of liquids resulted in large plumes of contaminated groundwater.
Since groundwater treatment facilities began operating in the mid-1990s, approximately 19 billion gallons have been treated and more than 435 tons of contaminants have been removed from groundwater on the Hanford Site.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
