RICHLAND, Wash. - A significant effort at the Hanford Site will reduce the risk of below-ground uranium reaching the Columbia River.
Workers with EM Richland Operations Office (RL) contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) recently finished injecting a special solution into the ground, using a series of 48 wells across 2.5 acres north of Richland. That’s where underground uranium concentrations remain high after years of plutonium production at Hanford.
Through a process called sequestration, uranium binds with the injected solution, preventing it from reaching the groundwater and Columbia River.
“Our innovative workers are always inventing new ways to make our engineered processes better," said Bill Barrett, deputy vice president of CHPRC’s soil and groundwater remediation project. “By using the sequestration process, workers saved time, resources, and money."
Crews scanned the ground to develop a 3-D below-ground picture to see that the solution reached the desired locations and took samples to monitor performance. Workers will continue monitoring and sampling for the next several months.
In addition to getting input from workers, RL consulted the area’s Native American tribes on how best to monitor and evaluate the results of the injections.
“We appreciate the various perspectives we heard as we prepared to start this remedy for contamination in Hanford’s 300 Area, " said RL Federal Project Director Mike Cline. “We modified our approach and the methods we will use to evaluate the effectiveness of the injections as a result of the input we received."
-Contributor: Lynn Tegeler
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
