A long-awaited solution for Hanford's nuclear waste storage may be weeks away

Earlier this month, it looked like a pivotal part of the effort to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south central Washington was going to be stuck in limbo. Plans to build an important and long-awaited radioactive waste treatment plant appeared to be put on hold, but then the US Secretary of Energy's Office confirmed the plant would be operational by Oct. 15.

Hanford is one of the largest Superfund sites in the United States. It was established in 1943 to create plutonium for atomic bombs. Northwest Public Broadcasting senior correspondent Anna King gave KUOW’s Kim Malcolm this update.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: What kind of waste are we talking about, and why is there a need to process it?

Anna King: There's 56 million gallons of radioactive waste at Hanford. It's kind of this witch's brew of 1,800 chemicals and many, many radioactive constituents, in the form of sludge, salts, and liquids. There are 177 house-sized, aging tanks of that stuff, and it's all stored underground at Hanford. Many of those tanks are leaking thousands of gallons of that material into the desert not far from the Columbia River.

How long has this waste treatment plant, it’s called a vitrification plant, been in the works, and what is it going to do?

This plant was supposed to process low-level waste into glass logs for safe, long-term storage at Hanford. They broke ground on this plant in 2001. It was originally scheduled to go online in 2009. The plant will pipe in sludge and waste, mix it with glass-forming materials heated up in giant melters, and then pour it into thousands of log-shaped canisters that are 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide. The plant can fill 3.5 of those canisters a day if it's run at full capacity.

What have Washington officials been saying about the rumors of more delays, and how it appears that we're moving ahead now?

Reading between the lines, I think there is a nervous expectation that this plant will start up. It's like the week before a baby's born. You know bad things could happen, but nobody's talking about that, and everyone is just focused on the goal of a safe delivery.

I talked with Stephanie Schleif, a nuclear waste program manager at Washington state's Ecology Department. You could almost see the expectation and some of the nervousness in her face. She said that she's really watching for the testing of the processes of the plant for environmental safety and the plant startup schedule.

She says after all that is signed and delivered and checked off, she thinks Ecology is going to have a huge party with a big cake, with a melter or something drawn on the top, and that they're even going to invite the retirees from many years past to come back and celebrate this good job done. This plant's construction and startup has outlasted many people's careers.

Literally decades in the making. So, what will it take to start operations by October 15?

The Department of Energy has kind of been silent in the last few weeks. They're really focused on getting this plant up and running. I've heard there's potentially a media plan out there and a media day, possibly, but information has been very hard to get right now.

And where will these logs be stored?

The facility is called the Integrated Disposal Facility. It's a massive hole in the desert, 1,500 feet wide, 765 feet long, and 45 feet deep. It could be expanded over time to accept more material. It has a liner to collect anything that leaches out. It's meant to keep this radioactive waste safe for a long, long time.

High-level waste is supposed to go off of Hanford to a deep geologic repository. That was supposed to be Yucca Mountain, but that site is defunct. So far, the government hasn't picked a new site to store the nation's high-level waste.

And at the risk of jinxing this, what would happen if this plant is not finished?

It would mean that 56 million gallons of radioactive waste underground in these old battleship tanks would just remain there, and that we would have to come up with some other solution, like possibly binding up the waste in grout, or possibly building new tanks to store it so that it doesn't leak out into the desert more than it already has.

These are really difficult decisions, and the state of Washington and many people who have a stake in this cleanup, like local tribes, really want this waste stabilized and out of the ground.

Are there other concerns at Hanford?

There's basically 1,900 highly radioactive and glowing cesium and strontium capsules that they need to get into dry storage, to protect them from an event like a major earthquake that could upset that system and make those rods go dry. Also, we have nine reactors along the Columbia River that ultimately have to be maintained, wound down, and disposed of. So, there's a lot at Hanford still to clean up.

Looking ahead, how long is it going to take for this new plant to process all the waste that it's been built to deal with, and how much is it going to cost?

The Department of Energy says this process to bind up all the waste into glass will take nearly 40 years. It could cost more than $30 billion, according to Senator Patty Murray, just for the low-level part of this plant.

Before we let you go, is there any word yet on whether our brand-new federal government shutdown is going to affect Hanford?

That's really hard to say. I've checked with many of my sources today to see if there was any kind of immediate actions that they could identify. All I know so far is that it's business as usual at Hanford. There's one National Park Service employee who is on furlough. They oversee the Manhattan Project National Historic Park. But all of the contractors, all of the trades, they seem to still be working at Hanford.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.