 Ray Geimer with EM contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company, left, shows company president Scott Sax a mock-up of parts of a vertical pipe casing system at Hanford’s Maintenance and Storage Facility. The system will be used to stabilize and remove radioactive debris at Hanford’s 1.2-million-gallon K West Reactor fuel storage basin.
RICHLAND, Wash. – EM Richland Operations Office (RL) contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company (CPCCo) is preparing to implement key components of a system that will isolate and stabilize about 15,000 pounds of radioactive debris in the K West Reactor spent fuel storage basin on the Hanford Site.
Workers recently completed system testing at a mock-up in Hanford’s Maintenance and Storage Facility, as well as at a site in Texas. Mock-ups are used extensively at Hanford to train workers and test equipment before starting work in a radiological environment.
Stabilization of debris in the 1.2-million-gallon water-filled basin follows the successful removal and transfer of radioactive sludge in September 2019.
“Stabilizing and removing debris is one of the final steps leading to removing water from and demolishing the basin,” said Mark French, RL project and facilities division director. “Installing this system will allow us to do the work needed to complete cleanup activities in Hanford’s K West Area.”
 Crews recently completed testing on a debris stabilization system using a mock-up of the K West Reactor fuel storage basin. Mock-ups are used extensively at Hanford to train workers and test equipment before starting work in a radiological environment.
 This diagram shows the vertical pipe casing system that will isolate and stabilize about 15,000 pounds of radioactive debris left in the K West Reactor fuel storage basin at Hanford.
Waste material left in the K West Reactor Basin after 60 years of fuel storage operations — such as contaminated tools, scrap metal, and fuel canister lids — will be placed into baskets, washed, and remotely loaded into 4-foot-diameter, 22-foot-tall tubes — called vertical pipe casings — installed in the basin.
The partially filled casings will then be drained and filled with an engineered grout to stabilize the waste. After the basin has been drained and filled with grout, an auger will blend the contents of the pipe casings to prepare the material for removal and packaging during basin demolition. The packaged waste will be characterized to identify the appropriate disposal path.
“Our skilled team continues to make excellent progress installing the stabilization system,” said Matt St. Germaine, contractor operations manager for the project. “This effort builds on the successful removal of radioactive sludge from the basin and maintains our focus on reducing risk to the nearby Columbia River.”
Waste processing in the vertical pipe casings is expected to begin this summer.
-Contributor: Dieter Bohrmann
 EM and liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation completed a salt dissolution campaign in Tank 37 at the Savannah River Site ahead of schedule, creating tank space for evaporator operations and allowing for more feed to the Salt Waste Processing Facility.
AIKEN, S.C. – EM’s liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) has completed a significant waste retrieval project, further advancing EM’s mission of safe cleanup of legacy liquid waste.
Savannah River Remediation (SRR) completed a salt dissolution campaign in Tank 37, one of the underground tanks storing high-level liquid waste at SRS. Salt dissolution is a process to dissolve hardened saltcake through water additions and mixing pumps and jets. Dissolving the solids into liquid allows the waste to be transferred to another tank for temporary storage before further processing through the liquid waste system.
Evaporator operations in H Tank Farm were the catalyst for Tank 37 salt dissolution. Use of evaporation reduces the volume of liquid waste in the underground waste storage tanks. Tank 37 is the “drop tank” for 3H Evaporator, meaning the tank receives the concentrated salt from the evaporator output. The 3H Evaporator operations had filled Tank 37 with concentrated salt, causing the need to create additional tank space for more concentrated salt from the evaporator. Dissolving the salt in Tank 37 provided the solution and created excellent feed to the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), operated by contractor Parsons.
The success of the Tank 37 campaign will contribute significantly to future SWPF batches, according to DOE-Savannah River Assistant Manager for Waste Disposition Jim Folk.
“Processing six million gallons of SRS tank waste this year is an EM 2021 priority,” Folk said. “Producing high-quality salt batch feed from the tank farms means we are able to provide more material for processing at the Salt Waste Processing Facility, helping us meet this goal.”
Through 14 transfers, SRR dissolved more than 59 inches of salt from the tank, producing 830,000 gallons of high-quality salt solution.
The Tank 37 salt dissolution project exceeded expectations, according to SRR Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Project Manager Mark Schmitz.
“Savannah River Remediation achieved unprecedented salt dissolution success with Tank 37,” Schmitz said. “Not only did the SRR team dissolve more salt than originally planned, but we also finished the project one month ahead of schedule.”
Emptying and closing waste tanks at SRS is part of EM’s Strategic Vision 2021-2031.
SRR implemented several innovative techniques to improve the salt dissolution campaign, including designing and developing enhanced mixing jets and deploying cameras during water additions and transfers to effectively target and reduce saltcake mounds.
-Contributor: Colleen Hart
 RICHLAND, Wash. – A second slate of 12 laboratory technicians recently started work at the EM Office of River Protection (ORP) Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site. They join the first class hired in January and will work with chemists, such as Lab Ops Dayshift Supervisor Amber Hoggard, shown here, to analyze the approximately 3,000 samples of tank waste that will come to the Analytical Laboratory each year supporting Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) operations. DFLAW is a system of interdependent projects and infrastructure improvements, managed and highly integrated as a program, that must operate together to vitrify, or immobilize within glass, Hanford tank waste. Samples will be characterized by the laboratory team throughout the vitrification process to confirm the WTP is producing glass that meets regulatory requirements.
-Contributor: Staci West
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