The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will host two public meetings in October to provide information and answer questions about the Draft Waste Incidental to Reprocessing Evaluation for Closure of Waste Management Area C at the Hanford Site (Draft WIR Evaluation). Each meeting will be preceded by a half-hour open house: 

• Tuesday, October 16: 2:30-3 p.m. (open house); 3-5 p.m. (meeting) at the Eliot Center at the First Unitarian Church in Portland

• Thursday, October 18: 6:30-7 p.m. (open house); 7-9 p.m. (meeting) at the UW Horticultural Center in Seattle

The Draft WIR Evaluation is an important step toward closure of the 16 single-shell tanks at Hanford’s C Tank Farm, also known as Waste Management Area C (WMA C). Waste from these tanks has been successfully retrieved, and safely closing the emptied tanks would be a significant achievement in DOE’s Hanford cleanup mission. DOE has a record of safely and successfully closing emptied underground waste tanks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho.

The Draft WIR Evaluation demonstrates that the tanks (from which waste has been retrieved), ancillary structures and their residuals at closure of WMA C will meet the waste incidental to reprocessing (WIR) criteria in DOE Manual 435.1-1, Radioactive Waste Management Manual, are not high-level radioactive waste and may be managed as low-level radioactive waste.

DOE is consulting with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the Draft WIR Evaluation and the underlying performance assessment. Following consideration of public comments and NRC consultation, DOE anticipates issuing a final WIR Evaluation. Based on the final WIR Evaluation, DOE may potentially determine (in a “WIR Determination”) whether the stabilized tanks, ancillary structures, and their residuals in WMA C at the time of closure are wastes incidental to the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and can be managed as low-level radioactive waste pursuant to DOE Order 435.1, Radioactive Waste Management, and the associated DOE Manual 435.1-1, Radioactive Waste Management Manual.

Comments on the Draft WIR Evaluation will be accepted through Nov. 7, 2018.

More information on the Draft WIR Evaluation and underlying performance assessment, including links to documents for review and how to submit public comment, is available at https://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/WasteManagementAreaC.  

For additional questions about the public meetings, please contact Dieter Bohrmann at Dieter_G_Bohrmann@orp.doe.gov.

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