Hanford Cleanup: the First 20 Years

Hanford Cleanup: The First 20 Years July 2009 Hanford Cleanup: The First 20 Years July 2009 This report was written and produced by the Oregon Department of Energy’s Nuclear Safety Division, with the support of U.S. Department of Energy Grant #DE-FG06-RL14780. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Energy. Most photos are courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy. Oregon Department of Energy 625 Marion Street NE, Salem, OR 97301-3737 503-378-4040 • 800-221-8035 • http://oregon.gov/ENERGY/ Hanford Cleanup: The First 20 Years ay 15, 2009 marked the twentieth anniversary way, those involved overcame some tremendously Mof the signing of the Hanford Federal Facility difficult and unique technical challenges. Agreement and Consent Order, most often referred But the cleanup is also not nearly as far along to as the Tri-Party Agreement. The signing of the Tri- as any of us expected or would like to have seen. Party Agreement marked the formal beginning of The Hanford cleanup has been more difficult, more cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site in Washington costly (about $30 billion so far), and has taken state. The agreement, signed by the U.S. Department much longer than anyone envisioned at the start. of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection The remaining challenges will require significant Agency, and the Washington Department of Ecology, funds, technical ingenuity, and dogged determina- established a 30-year timetable for cleaning up Han- tion to see the cleanup through to completion. ford’s toxic wastes. The pages that follow The 586 square mile detail both the progress Hanford Site was home made so far and the re- to the world’s first plu- maining challenges. tonium production fa- Since the extent of cilities. The processes Hanford’s contamination used at Hanford to cre- problems first became ate plutonium generated public knowledge in tremendous amounts of 1986, the State of radioactive and chemi- Oregon — through its cally hazardous waste. Department of Energy — Plutonium production has consistently, force- ended at Hanford in fully, and effectively 1988. Since 1989, the worked for cleanup of focus has been on envi- the site. Despite the risks ronmental cleanup. Hanford workers at a Hanford reactor. it faces from Hanford, By most estimates, Oregon is not a party the Hanford cleanup is just a third of the way com- to the Tri-Party Agreement and Oregon has no plete. Amendments to the Tri-Party Agreement have regulatory authority over cleanup decisions. Yet so far extended the end of cleanup by another decade Oregon has a tremendous stake in ensuring the and may yet extend it by two additional decades. safe and timely cleanup of Hanford. Cleanup will likely continue well into the 2040s and The Columbia River flows through the Han- possibly beyond. ford Site then continues downstream past prime This continuing extension perhaps best illus- Oregon farmlands, fisheries and recreation areas. trates the massive extent of contamination result- The Hanford Site includes the Hanford Reach, ing from 45 years of plutonium production for a major spawning area for Chinook salmon and America’s nuclear weapons program. It is also a steelhead. Radioactive wastes transported to and reflection on the waste management practices used from Hanford travel on at least 200 miles of during much of that time. Oregon highways. Portions of two Oregon counties There is no doubt there has been considerable are within the 50 mile nuclear emergency planning progress at Hanford. The threat to the public and radius of Hanford. People in these areas could be the environment has been dramatically reduced at risk in the event of a major Hanford accident. since those days when Hanford began the awkward A quality cleanup at Hanford is vital to protect transition from production to cleanup. Along the Oregon’s citizens and our natural resources. Hanford Cleanup: The First 20 Years | Page i This summary coming on-line and of the first 20 years beginning to immo- of Hanford clean- bilize some of Han- up is intended to ford’s tank waste. chronicle many of As we progress the key issues and through the years decisions that have that are covered shaped the Hanford by this report, it cleanup. This is not is encouraging to the full story of see the progress Hanford cleanup. of cleanup and But it is a big part the culture change of the story. that has embraced This report was cleanup as a wor- not intended as ‘the Construction of Hanford’s D Reactor in 1944. thy and important Oregon view’ on the mission. The early cleanup, and we made no attempt to ‘spin’ this re- years were focused in large part on resolving im- port so as to be overly critical or overly compli- mediate safety issues as well as readying ourselves mentary of the work that has been done. We’ve for the start of cleanup — identifying the hazards, attempted merely to provide information on what developing plans, and designing and building some happened and when — the good and the bad; the of the facilities — including disposal facilities — breakthroughs and the breakdowns; and much in- that would be needed for the cleanup work. With between. most of those short-term and immediate hazards We believe the history of Hanford cleanup of- resolved several years ago, the focus in later years fers us lessons for the present and for the future and could more fully turn towards cleanup. is well worth documenting. We have already seen In writing this report we have relied upon offi- that assumptions made during the operating years cial correspondence, news releases, and various re- about the finality of waste disposal have in many ports from a variety of agencies and organizations. cases proven to be very wrong. Considerable effort We have also drawn heavily from coverage by the has gone into digging up many old burial grounds news media — the Tri-City Herald in particular, but and disposal areas that were thought at the time also the Associated Press and other media sources. to be safe and permanent disposal places. We hope We have found that the words of so many of that decisions and actions that have been made dur- those involved with cleanup have great resonance. ing these past 20 years are protective and durable. You will find many thoughtful quotes throughout The biggest lesson may be one that has been ver- this report. These few words often best sum up the balized many times, yet often ignored — by Congress, successes and the struggles. by DOE, by regulators, by many of us. That lesson So, 20 years are behind us, and the landscape, is that there are few quick and inexpensive solutions the culture, and the challenges at Hanford are most- at Hanford. The extent of the contamination or the ly very different from what they were when cleanup complexity of the solutions — or both — generally began. We’re not yet at the halfway point and have prevent speedy or cheap resolution. not yet reached the point where everything seems Cleanup in 2020 and beyond will be much dif- doable and achievable. There are several major ferent than the cleanup of today. By 2020, DOE challenges yet to overcome — tank waste retrieval should be long-finished with cleanup along the and treatment; cleanup of groundwater and deep Columbia River corridor and the area of cleanup vadose zone contamination; and the need for con- should have been reduced to perhaps as few as 20 tinued funding, to name a few of those challenges square miles or less on Hanford’s Central Plateau. — before we can be assured that the cleanup will The Waste Treatment Plant will also hopefully be ultimately be a success. Page ii | Hanford Cleanup: The First 20 Years �� Hanford Site � �� The 586 square mile Hanford Nuclear Site is �� located in south central Washington near the �� Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco and Kennewick. �� The Columbia River flows through the Hanford Site. Much of the land is arid, gently-rolling sagebrush desert. �� Numbers are used to designate specific areas at Hanford. At the north end of Hanford, along the Columbia River, are the 100 �� Areas where� nine nuclear� production reactors were built. All of these reactors are shut down. � �� Hanford’s� chemical separations plants are situated in the 200 Areas, near the middle of the site. A series of chemical pro- � �� cesses were� conducted� in ��these huge plants to separate plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. The 200 Areas are also where � � � �� Hanford’s 177�� underground��

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