DOE placed about 6,500 cubic yards of the grout in the K West Reactor Basin. That’s enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools.

Workers started placing grout after pumping out contaminated water from the 1.2-million-gallon basin in July. The grout surrounds contaminated debris left in the basin and stabilizes it for future demolition.

The basin measures 125 feet by 67 feet. It contained 16 feet of water to provide radiation shielding for workers.

The team filled the basin in three layers. The first foot covered contaminated debris on the floor. The second layer is 14 feet of controlled density fill, which is less dense than concrete. Workers placed a 9-inch layer of grout on top to complete the work.

Drivers delivered about 750 truckloads of grout during the project. To shorten the time it took to go back and forth between deliveries, workers built a grout plant nearby to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

K West is scheduled for interim safe storage, or cocooning, in 2027.

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In 2022, DOE placed the former plutonium production K East Reactor into interim safe storage, a process known as "cocooning." The cocoon will protect the building while radioactivity in the deactivated reactor core decays over the next several decades, making it safe and easier to complete disposition.

This was the seventh of Hanford's nine reactors to be cocooned. The 100 K Area is the last reactor area in Hanford's Columbia River corridor where cleanup is still progressing.

More than 35 billion gallons of groundwater have been treated – and nearly 680 tons of contaminants removed – since the site’s treatment program began in the 1990s.

Workers recently completed a significant expansion of the 200 West Pump and Treat Facility, the largest of its six groundwater treatment plants.

The facility, which began operations in 2012, increased its flow rate to more than 3,400 gallons of groundwater per minute, a 35% increase over its original design capacity of 2,500 gallons per minute. The expanded capacity will allow the facility to treat an additional 475 million gallons annually.

The ambitious expansion project required the installation of 54,000 feet — more than 10 miles — of specialized plastic piping to connect the 200 West Pump and Treat Facility to a dozen new groundwater extraction wells. The goal of the expansion was to optimize the extraction well network by decreasing the plume size and concentration. This more effectively increases the removal of radioactive and chemical contamination under the site’s Central Plateau.

Demolishing the building and remediating contaminated soil below the facility - designated the 300-296 Waste Site - is a priority for DOE, due to the facility's proximity to the Columbia River and city of Richland.

Demolition operations were postponed in 2010 after workers detected significant contamination in the soil under one of the building's "hot cells," which shielded workers from radiation while they used remotely operated equipment to conduct research. The contamination likely came from a spill of radioactive materials from one of the hot cells called B Cell.

The 324 Building remains in a safe and stable configuration. The contaminated soil beneath the structure has remained stable for decades, and underground monitoring shows the contamination has not migrated toward groundwater.

View the 324 Building Disposition Project Fact Sheet.

To empty the 21st tank, DOE removed about 350,000 gallons waste from the million-gallon single shell Tank AX-101.he Department’s mission to clean up sites across the country that supported our national security objectives from World War II to the end of the Cold War” said Delmar Noyes, DOE Hanford assistant manager for Tank Waste Operations. “Hanford teams removing the waste are meticulous in managing radiological, chemical, and industrial hazards while progressing our cleanup mission,” he added.

“The retrieval teams are successful because they have taken ownership of the work and our risk-reduction mission,” said Peggy Hamilton, Retrievals manager for Washington River Protection Solutions. “We continue to make great progress in retrieving tank waste because the teams are dedicated to working safely, efficiently and keeping up their skills through continuous training.”

Hanford workers won’t stop at 21. They will start removing waste from the 22nd tank this year.

The A Farm tanks were built in the mid-1950s, and store waste generated by plutonium processing at the nearby Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant during the Cold War era.

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Hanford’s C Farm, with 16 underground tanks, was the first tank farm to be completely retrieved, five years ago. Retrieval of one tank in the S Farm was completed in 2007. Workers are retrieving waste from the last of the four tanks in the AX Farm.

• View the A/AX Tank Farm Retrieval Fact Sheet
• View the Hanford Tank Farms Fact Sheet

WTP crews prepared for the test by adding a mixture of powdered glass-forming materials and simulated tank waste into both melters at the facility, creating conditions nearly identical to full operations. Workers then cut power to the facility and watched as the safety systems automatically activated the backup power and isolated the emissions system to prevent leakage.

A cold cap is a floating mass of glass-formers and simulated, and eventually real, tank waste that forms shortly after the mixture is fed into a melter. The cold cap slowly melts into the glass pool, producing the gasses the emissions treatment system addresses.

The completion of this test demonstrates the reliability of the Low-Activity Waste Facility’s safety systems, and that the emissions treatment system is ready for the next stages of operation.

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In August 2024, workers began installing equipment to demonstrate how an alternative treatment technology could safely accelerate cleanup of radioactive tank waste. The Test Bed Initiative (TBI) Demonstration will treat approximately 2,000 gallons of tank waste and ship it to commercially licensed facilities in Texas and Utah that will immobilize it in grout and dispose of it.

DOE and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, are installing a control room, shipping totes and other equipment to begin the TBI Demonstration. Workers will install and test the equipment through September, with treatment operations set to take place by the end of the year. The Department plans to ship the treated waste in fiscal year 2025 after laboratory testing ensures it meets requirements.

Using this approach will safely treat low-activity waste from Hanford tanks and dispose of it outside Washington state in a manner that would reduce risks to workers, the public and the environment consistent with industry standards.

Learn more. 

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In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy, Washington State Department of Ecology, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a landmark agreement that proposes a realistic and achievable course for cleaning up millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste from large, underground tanks at the Hanford Site. Read the press release.

Following voluntary, mediated negotiations that began in 2020, also known as Holistic Negotiations, the agencies have signed a settlement agreement and are proposing new and revised cleanup deadlines in the Tri-Party Agreement and Washington v. Granholm consent decree. The proposed changes uphold a shared commitment to the safe and effective cleanup of tank waste.

Highlights of the proposed modifications include the following:

• Maintaining existing timeframes for starting treatment of both low-activity and high-level waste by immobilizing it in glass via vitrification
• Using a direct-feed approach for immobilizing high-level waste in glass, similar to the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste Program
• Building a vault storage system and second effluent management facility to support treating high-level waste
• Retrieving waste from 22 tanks in Hanford’s 200 West Area by 2040, including grouting the low-activity portion of the waste for offsite disposal.
• Designing and constructing 1-million gallons of additional capacity for multi-purpose storage of tank waste
• Evaluating and developing new technologies for retrieving waste from tanks

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In March 2024, DOE completed successful heat up of the second of the two world's largest melters at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. This achievement marks a significant milestone in the Department’s ongoing effort to address chemical and radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at the Hanford Site.

With both melters now at their operational temperature, the Hanford team will next begin running nonradioactive simulants through the WTP systems over the next several months prior to performing environmental performance testing.  This achievement builds on significant progress in the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) program.

The two 300-ton WTP melters are the heart of the vitrification process, which will immobilize Hanford tank waste in glass. During vitrification, treated waste will be fed to the melters where it will be mixed with glass forming materials, heated to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit and poured into specially designed stainless-steel containers for disposal at the Integrated Disposal Facility.

With the operating temperature successfully attained and a molten glass pool established, the next phase involves the removal of startup heaters. They will be replaced with bubblers, specialized equipment designed to introduce air into the molten glass, circulating it and maintaining an even temperature.

• View the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste Fact Sheet
• View the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant Fact Sheet

The facility offers a safe and compliant location for the disposal of low-level radioactive, hazardous and mixed waste generated during cleanup activities on Hanford’s Central Plateau and in the nearby Columbia River Corridor. To protect the environment from contamination, ERDF has a liner with multiple layers that also capture runoff from weather and dust control, and directs it to holding tanks for treatment.

Workers at the 107-acre facility have disposed of demolition material from more than 800 facilities and solid material and soil from 1,300 waste sites since the facility’s operations began in 1996. The facility consistently receives an average of 10,000 to 15,000 tons of waste per month.

ERDF can hold 21 million tons of waste distributed across 10 large disposal cells, enough to support site cleanup work for a few more years. By 2025, DOE will begin construction of an eleventh cell that will provide capacity for about another 20 years of disposal of cleanup debris.

In the spring of 2024, DOE finished demolishing a former chemical storage area that supported the nearby plant during Hanford’s operations to produce plutonium. Demolition of the 211-A Chemical Storage Area included the removal of more than 20 empty tanks, a pumphouse and hundreds of feet of pipeline. This is the second chemical storage area next to PUREX that workers have demolished, allowing crews to begin cleanup activities inside the main PUREX facility. PUREX was key to Hanford’s plutonium production mission during the Cold War era. The plant processed nearly 70% of Hanford’s estimated 20 million reactor fuel rods to recover plutonium for further processing.

In February 2023, workers successfully removed a contaminated glovebox from the 231Z Building. This building, a former materials engineering laboratory, is one of the oldest structures on the Hanford Site.

Gloveboxes played a critical role in Hanford’s original plutonium-production mission, allowing workers to safely work on projects involving radioactive and chemical materials.

The glovebox was placed into a container for safe transport and storage at Hanford’s Central Waste Complex, bringing the 231Z Building one step closer to demolition.

Workers recently finished extensive modifications at the Hanford Site’s Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility (WESF), a significant step in preparations to move 1,936 radioactive capsules of cesium and strontium from the facility’s water-filled basin into dry storage casks starting in 2025.

The stainless steel capsules are generally 21 inches long and 2 ½ inches in diameter and are stored under 13 feet of water that provides shielding from radiation and keeps the capsules from overheating.

The next significant step will be installing equipment for moving the capsules from the underwater basin into dry-storage casks, and then moving the dry-storage casks to a nearby concrete pad that will provide safe and compliant storage until a final disposition path is determined.

Moving the capsules to dry storage eliminates a long-term risk in the unlikely event of a larger-than-expected earthquake causing water to leak from the basin.

Most of the modifications were made in three areas of the facility where capsule transfer equipment will be installed — a shielded hot cell, an operating “canyon” and a truck loading area.

Meanwhile, at an on-site mock-up facility about 15 miles from WESF, engineers and technicians began testing the capsule transfer equipment.

The mock-up contains replicas of the WESF hot cell, operating canyon and truck loading area, and helps workers train on using the capsule transfer equipment in a non-hazardous facility before starting operations at WESF.

View the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility Fact Sheet.

As cleanup of large areas has completed, infrastructure has been right-sized to meet the future mission. At the same time, demand for safe and reliable services in operations areas increases. The acceleration of infrastructure projects across the site ensures DOE can be successful in its mission to protect workers, the public and the environment.

Currently under construction, a new water treatment facility will support DFLAW and the transition to the 24/7 mission. The new facility will be capable of producing a minimum of 3.5 million gallons of clean water a day and can be expanded to provide five million gallons per day, if Hanford Site demands increase.

In 2022, DOE finished a new $13.5 million, 17,600-square-foot office building to provide a safe, modern office space for workers as the Hanford Site prepares for the 24/7 mission and increased laboratory testing services. The new space will house administrative and technical staff for Hanford's 222-S Laboratory.

The laboratory's primary mission is to provide analytical support for storage and treatment of tank waste at the site. That includes testing for tank waste retrieval, 242-A Evaporator campaigns, tank waste transfers, waste management, and soon the DFLAW Program.

The new office space replaces a 50-year-old office building in the 200 West Area.

View the Infrastructure Needs for the Future Fact Sheet.

The flights can capture surface imagery or video and evaluate a building's exterior or conduct utility or land stewardship inspections.

DOE can use a drone to capture images around an electrical substation, allowing electrical workers to speed up analysis of the gear, complete better line maintenance and improve the way outages are managed. The images also help provide video and data that is used for 3D modeling.