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Home / Washington Business - November/December 2004 / Cleaning Hanford |
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Cleaning Hanford |
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Written On: November/December 2004 |
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Written By: By Daniel Brunell |
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It is ironic that one of the largest and famous federal projects has spurred another. A little more than 60 years ago, the Manhattan Project transformed Hanford from a bleak wasteland to a nuclear powerhouse. The uranium used in the atomic bombs that ended World War II was produced at this remote south central Washington site. The growth of the U.S. nuclear industry helped expand the Tri-Cities to the thriving community it is today. However, the prosperity that the Manhattan Project created also brought an ecological disaster. Consider this: Hanford has more than 1,700 waste sites; 500 contaminated facilities including 9 nuclear reactors; 50 million gallons of corrosive high-level nuclear waste, which sits in more than 177 aging underground storage tanks; 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel; 12 tons of plutonium; and 25 million cubic tons of buried or stored solid waste. All together, Hanford has more than 586 square miles, including 51 miles of the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River. The effects on the environment were already apparent when the underground storage was found to be leaking, seeping dangerously close to the Columbia River. This leakage of liquid waste has caused more than 270 billion gallons of groundwater to have levels of radiation above drinking water standards over an area of more than 80 square miles.
In 1989, the Dept. of Energy (DOE), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Washington State Dept. of Ecology signed on to the Tri-Party Agreement. The Tri-Party Agreement outlined legally enforceable milestones for Hanford cleanup over several decades. With so much going on, so many interested parties, environmental and health concerns, one could see how the project could easily bog down. Even though this could be said about the early years of the cleanup, the last several years have been a different story. “Many contractors are driven by the common goal, cleaning up the waste at Hanford,” said Geoff Tyree, spokesman with Fluor Hanford, which employs more than 4,000 at Hanford. “The regulatory framework provided by the Tri-Party Agreement keeps our efforts focused on common outcomes of a clean Hanford.”
The Tri-Party Agreement made the Hanford cleanup the largest nuclear cleanup in the world. The project is so large that the DOE has set up two federal offices at the site to manage the cleanup. The Office of River Protection (ORP) primarily focuses on cleaning underground storage tanks and other waste that threatens the river. The Richland Operations Office (ROO) works to cleanup other sites and brings down the Hanford skyline. Combined, these two offices have a workforce of approximately 11,000 and an annual budget of about $2 billion in fiscal year 2003. The primary cleanup operations are expected to be complete by 2035.
One of the biggest concerns is the leaking tanks. In 1998, the ORP was created to give an independent office to oversee the cleanup of radiation that threatens the Columbia River. Since starting its mission, the cleanup has been speeding up and is beating estimates. Increased funding from the Bush administration and DOE mandates has helped accelerate the tank cleanup and has allowed the timeline for completion to be shortened drastically. This only highlights the accomplishments at the Hanford site in the last few years. The cleanup is really gaining steam.
By the end of this year, all the remaining plutonium will have been safely stabilized and packaged for shipment off the Hanford site, consistent with DOE’s consolidation strategy for improved security. Also, all spent nuclear fuel will be far out of the basins and in safe, dry storage far from the Columbia River, ready for their ultimate disposal at the National Repository. “Visible progress is evident in every corner of Hanford,” said Colleen French, spokeswoman with the DOE. “The result of this accelerated progress includes meeting or beating regulatory compliance agreements, improving the site safety record, and cutting the estimated completion time and cost by at least 35 years.”
The ROO manages the rest of the cleanup including decommissioning and demolishing the nuclear facilities and mothballing the reactor core of the nine nuclear reactors, processing facilities and the hundreds of supporting buildings at Hanford. In 2003 alone, two nuclear facilities, three industrial facilities, and one radioactive facility were demolished. The ROO exceeded expectations in six of nine benchmarks in waste cleanup. Nuclear reactors have been stripped down to a protective cocoon so the radioactive core inside can decay toward its half-life without harming the environment. As the primary cleanup is completed, a new building will dominate the Hanford skyline: A $5.6 billion vitrification plant. The plant will encase nuclear wastes inside glass and will be the largest of its type in the world. This will stabilize the liquid waste into a stable, solid condition for hundreds of years, well beyond their nuclear half-life. The plant is scheduled to open in 2007 and will take more than 20 years to vitrificate all the waste at Hanford.
As the cleanup comes to a close, the Tri-Cities looks on to a future without Hanford. The economic foundation of Hanford has put the Tri-Cities through thick and thin. Hanford was inconsistent during the Cold War, leaving the Tri-Cities unsure. However, the stability that was not apparent during the Cold War has finally come. Even as the cleanup has shown the first signs of slowing down, the Tri-Cities economy has shown certain resilience. Home and commercial construction has shown continuous growth despite the recession of the last few years.
One reason is the DOE’s Pacific North-west National Laboratory is fast developing into a leader for research and development in the nation. One of nine DOE multi-program labs in the nation, the PNNL focuses on selected environmental, energy, health and national security objectives, strengthens the economy, and supports education of scientists and engineers. Operated by Battelle since 1965, PNNL has shifted focus from Hanford-related items to researching a great variety of items including energy efficiency technologies.
In recent years, they have broadened their base to the point where they have very little to do with Hanford anymore. Today, the PNNL is conducting important research such as assisting in the war on terror with research into biological agents. PNNL has also served as a beacon for other research firms to invest in the Tri-Cities.
Another reason why the Tri-Cities are weathering so well as Hanford shrinks is the fact that the Tri-Cities have been extremely aggressive in their economic development and marketing their community. For example, the agricultural industry has never looked better. Agricultural tourism from the region’s wine industry has brought revitalization to some of the rural areas of the Tri-Cities.
It has been an interesting ride for Hanford the last 60 years. From the explosion of development in the Cold War to the recent deconstruction of that development, this piece of desolation has seen a lot. Over the next several decades we will see a gradual reduction of activities in Hanford as the cleanup winds down. By 2050, the cleanup of Hanford will be a memory with only a few hundred people still employed maintaining the site. The Tri-Cities economy is on track to prosper in their new post-Hanford economy.
Yet with all this, the legacy will remain, but it won’t all be bad. The cleanup has spurred new technologies, companies and ideas. Hanford brought the Tri-Cities from remote river towns to important commercial centers. Still with all this, the ghost of the cocooned reactors will still dominate by the Columbia River as sign of a bygone era.
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