The environmental cleanup continues with completion of a protective enclosure over a former reactor building at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., where reactors produced plutonium for more than 40 years.
The protective enclosure known as a “cocoon” constructed over the former K East Reactor building will protect the building as “radioactivity in the deactivated reactor core decays over the next several decades,” an Oct. 26 news release said. The action makes safer the reactor’s future “complete disposition.”
“I’m very proud of our team’s performance on this complex project,” John Eschenberg, Central Plateau Cleanup Company president, said in the release. “So many different skill sets were needed to successfully complete this work. From laborers to trades and crafts to the support of the department and our regulators, it was a true collaborative effort and we did it all with a spotless safety record.”
The Hanford Site contractor, Central Plateau Cleanup Company, "broke ground on the project last fall after awarding a subcontract to a local business for the work in August 2021,” the release said. The project was “completed ahead of schedule and under budget," leaving only one reactor left to be addressed.
“Our One Hanford team continues to deliver taxpayer value by safely completing projects that reduce risks to our workforce, our community, the Columbia River and the environment of the Pacific Northwest,” Brian Stickney, Environmental Management Office of River Protection and Richland Operations Office deputy director, said in the release. “With this achievement and the exceptional accomplishments over the last few years, I am very optimistic about the Hanford Site’s future.”
The K East Reactor is the seventh of the Hanford Site’s nine former reactors to be cocooned, the release said.
“The nearby K West Reactor will be the eighth,” the release said. “The ninth, the B Reactor, has been preserved as the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor and is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Hanford’s other six reactors were cocooned between 1998 and 2012.”
