The AP Tank Farm was the last tank farm constructed at Hanford. It includes eight tanks, each with a capacity of 1.265 million gallons. Farm construction began in 1983 and the tanks were put into service in August 1986. AP Farm tanks hold waste to be treated via the Tank-Side Cesium Removal System (TSCR).
TSCR separates cesium and undissolved solid materials from radioactive tank waste, providing a low-activity waste stream that will be sent to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant's Low- Activity Waste(LAW) facility for immobilization through a process called vitrification.
The Effluent Treatment Facility has been in operations for over 20 years, treating water contaminated with low levels of radioactive and chemical waste primarily from the 242-A Evaporator, groundwater treatment systems, waste disposal operations and Hanford's K Basins. The Effluent Treatment Facility receives wastewater from the Liquid Effluent Retention Facility and treats it to remove radioactive and hazardous contaminants. Once the wastewater has been treated, it is stored until tests confirm the liquid is acceptable for discharge at the state approved land disposal site.
AX Tank Farm was constructed between 1963 and 1964, the last single-shell tank farm built at Hanford. The farm is located in Hanford's 200 East Area and contains four tanks, each with a capacity of 1 million gallons. Retrieval of the tanks began in 2019, and retrieval of the last tank in AX Farm, AX-101, is scheduled to begin in late 2022.
A Tank Farm, adjacent to AX Tank Farm, was constructed between 1954 and 1955. It contains six tanks, each with a capacity of 1 million gallons. Retrieval operations will begin after the completion of the AX-Farm tanks. In 2020, workers completed installing a state-of-the-art exhauster ventilation system, the first step in installing significant infrastructure to support future retrieval, which is scheduled to begin in 2024.
The 222-S Laboratory is the primary on-site laboratory for analysis of highly radioactive waste samples in support of all Hanford projects. The 70,000 square-foot full-service analytical facility handles highly radioactive samples for purposes of organic, inorganic and radiochemistry analyses.
The Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant will process and stabilize much of Hanford's 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste using a process called vitrification. Through vitrification, the waste is mixed with glass forming materials, heated to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, and then cooled to immobilize the waste in a sturdy glass matrix for disposal. The Plant includes four primary facilities and several support facilities. Once operations begin, it will be the largest chemical and radioactive waste treatment plant in the world.
The Low-Activity Waste Facility will immobilize low activity waste through a process called vitrification. Low-activity waste will be piped to one of two massive 300-ton melters, where it will be mixed with glass-forming materials and heated to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, creating a molten glass mixture. This molten mixture will be poured into stainless steel containers and cooled, immobilizing the waste into a solid glass matrix.
The stainless steel containers used to contain the glass are four feet in diameter, seven feet tall and weigh more than seven tons. During operations, more than a 1,000 of these containers will be produced each year. The LAW Facility will treat more than 1.75 million gallons of low-activity waste annually.
The LAW Facility is operated remotely by technicians located in a central control room. This team controls the melters and mechanical handling system that manages the containers in which the immobilized waste is poured and stored.
The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant Analytical Laboratory will determine a unique glass formulation recipe for each incoming batch of waste and confirm that final vitrified glass produced by the Low-Activity Waste Facility meets state and federal regulatory requirements and standards. Laboratory chemists and technicians will analyze approximately 3,000 samples each year during LAW operations.
The Laboratory team will use a combination of scientific instrumentation in the Inorganic and Radiography laboratories to conduct metals analysis, isotopic elemental analysis, and anion analysis as well as determining physical and chemical properties.
During Low-Activity Waste Facility operations, the Laboratory will receive a set of samples every 16 hours from the Facility. Samples will be delivered using a fully enclosed pneumatic system much like the ones used in a bank drive thru. Each set includes three, 35-millimeter samples from a single batch of waste. The individual samples are processed independently to ensure homogeneity and repeatability.
For every 1 gallon of waste treated in the Low-Activity Waste Facility, 2 gallons of secondary waste will be created. The Effluent Management Facility will evaporate the excess water to reduce the overall volume, after which the concentrated waste will be recirculated to the Low-Activity Waste Facility, and the non-radioactive liquid will be sent to the Liquid Effluent Retention Facility. The major portions of the Effluent Management Facility construction are complete.
Workers are the preparing the Integrated Disposal Facility to receive immobilized low-activity waste from the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, as well as other low-level waste from Hanford Site operations. The disposal site is nearly 1,500 feet wide, 765 feet long and 45 feet deep with a capacity of nearly 1.2 million cubic yards. Similar in design to Hanford's Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, the Integrated Disposal Facility is engineered to protect the environment.
The 100 K Area is the last reactor area in Hanford’s Columbia River corridor, where cleanup has not been completed. Located nearly 400 yards from the Columbia River, the K East and K West Reactors were built side-by-side in the early 1950s and supported plutonium production for more than 15 years.
After the reactors were decommissioned, the K East and K West Basins (water-filled storage areas) adjacent to the reactors were used to temporarily store more than 100,000 uranium fuel rods and fragments. Cleanout, dewatering and demolition of the K East Basin was completed about 10 years ago. In September 2019, workers completed removal and transport of radioactive sludge from the K West Basin to T Plant for safe interim storage. Today, work is underway to prepare for dewatering and demolition of the K West Basin.
In October 2022, construction was completed on the interim safe storage enclosure, or cocoon, for the K East Reactor. Cocooning of the K West Reactor is planned for the end of the decade.
T Plant became the world's first large-scale plutonium separation facility when construction was completed in 1944. The plutonium processed at T Plant was used for the Trinity Test in New Mexico in July 1945, and was used in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Today, T Plant is the oldest remaining nuclear facility in the country with an active waste management mission, providing safe and compliant temporary storage for highly radioactive sludge received from Hanford's K West Reactor fuel storage basin.
The Central Waste Complex, located in the center of the Hanford Site, is a storage and treatment facility for mixed low-level waste, transuranic and transuranic mixed waste, polychlorinated biphenyl waste, and other waste types requiring treatment before disposal. Waste stored and treated at the Central Waste Complex primarily comes from onsite sources, such as retrieved waste from burial grounds and waste generated by retrieval work at other Hanford facilities. Eventually, the waste stored at CWC will be disposed of onsite or at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The 200 West Pump and Treat System, which began operations in 2012, is one of the largest groundwater treatment facilities in the Department of Energy's Environmental Management complex. The system is currently designed to treat up to 2,500 gallons per minute of contaminated groundwater, removing several chemical and radioactive contaminants. Work is underway to expand treatment capacity by 50% to 3,750 gallons per minute. The facility is expected to treat more than 25 billion gallons over its lifetime.
The Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) operated from 1949 to 1989 and represented the final step in plutonium production at Hanford. At this facility, plutonium was processed into solid, hockey-puck sized “buttons” and plutonium oxide powder that could then be safely shipped to the country's weapons production facilities. The plant produced nearly two-thirds of the nation's plutonium stockpile.
Demolition on the last of four main buildings that comprised the plant was safely completed in 2020. In late 2021, crews finished placing more than 900 truckloads of soil over the former PFP footprint. The thick layer of sand and gravel will protect the environment from any residual contamination and limit the impact of water, wind and heat until future below-grade waste sites are remediated. The removal of radioactive and hazardous material from the PFP site not only reduces risk on Hanford's Central Plateau, but also allows for a significant reduction in radiological boundaries, restoring safe access to surrounding areas.
The Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility is a large, engineered landfill in the center of the Hanford Site used for the disposal of low-level radioactive, hazardous and mixed wastes generated from Hanford cleanup activities. The facility is composed of 10 large disposal cells and a liner system that protects the environment from the contents inside the cells. The Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility enables cleanup to progress across the 580-square-mile Hanford Site by providing a safe and compliant area to dispose of contaminated items. Since operations began in 1996, nearly 19 million tons of waste have been disposed here.
The Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility provides safe and compliant underwater storage for 1,936 highly radioactive capsules containing cesium and strontium. The capsules were generated in the 1970s, when cesium and strontium was removed from Hanford's tank waste to reduce the temperature of the waste inside the tanks. Work is underway to transfer the capsules to dry storage to allow for deactivation of the aging facility.
The 324 Building, located in Hanford's 300 Area, supported research on highly radioactive materials and operated from 1966 to 1996. Demolition operations were postponed in 2010 after workers discovered significant contamination under a portion of the building, which likely came from a previous spill of radioactive waste within the building hot cell. Removing that contamination to allow for the eventual demolition of the building is a top priority due to the proximity of the Columbia River and the city of Richland.
A short distance from the 324 Building, workers built a mock-up of the building's hot cell area. In this contamination-free environment, personnel train on equipment needed to remove the contaminated soil beneath the building. The mock-up facility allows employees to train in a safe environment to gain confidence in using the equipment and practice other procedures before performing the work in the actual hot cell.
TX Farm, located in Hanford's 200 West Area, is Hanford's largest single-shell tank farm. It is made up of 18 tanks, each with a capacity of 758,000 gallons. Workers recently installed an interim surface barrier that will prevent rain and snowmelt from percolating into the soil and driving existing contaminants toward groundwater. TX Farm is the fourth farm to have an interim surface barrier installed on it.
Tank waste treatment operations will increase the amount of water used on site, from 922 million gallons to over 1.4 billion gallons. The current 283W Water Treatment Plant has been in operation since the 1940s and is not adequately sized to support this increase. To support this increased demand, the Central Plateau Water Treatment Facility is being constructed. The new facility will eliminate the risk of chlorine gas on site, have a membrane material filtration system, satisfy the water needs of the WTP and reduce maintenance costs by millions.
The Hanford Site requires a dedicated and trained fire department, providing emergency fire, medical, hazardous materials and technical rescue response on a 24/7 basis. The fire department protects 365 square miles and provides mutual aide to nearby fires.
HAMMER is the Department of Energy's premier, hands-on, health and safety training center delivering site wide training. The facility includes specialty training areas and life-size props that create a variety of simulated industrial hazards to provide emergency response and hazardous material training.
Occupational Medical Services provides programs and services to the site workforce in occupational medicine, environmental safety and health, risk communication, health data analysis and trending, health education and promotion, industrial rehabilitation and ergonomics and behavioral health services.
