Strategies For Accelerating Cleanup At Toxic Waste Sites PDF Download

This paper describes project successes during the last year and presents strategies for accomplishing work required to accelerate waste retrieval, treatment and closure of 177 large underground waste tanks at the Hanford Site. The tanks contain approximately 53 million gallons of liquid, sludge, and solid waste resulting from decades of national defense production. The Hanford Site is a 560 square-mile area in southeastern Washington State. One of the nation's largest rivers, the Columbia River, flows through the site and within seven miles of the waste tanks. The US. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of River Protection and CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. (CH2M HILL) drew upon the recommendations in the DOE's Top-To-Bottom Review and the ideas that emerged from the Cleanup Challenges and Constraints Team (C3T) when creating new initiatives last fall in accelerated tank cleanup. The initiatives reflect discussions and planning during the last year by the DOE, regulatory, agencies, Hanford stakeholders, and CH2M HILL on how to accelerate tank cleanup and closure. The initiatives focus on near-term risk reduction, deployment of proven cleanup technologies, and completing the feed delivery and waste storage systems needed to support Hanford's Waste Treatment Plant. Working with the Office of River Protection, CH2M HILL is changing the way it does business to align with the new focus on accelerated tank cleanup initiatives. A key concept of this new approach is to deploy simple, proven technologies whenever possible to accomplish program goals. Finding existing technologies and evaluating whether they can be applied to or adapted to Hanford tank cleanup provide the best chance for success in achieving treatment of all of Hanford's tank waste by 2028.