Issues Mount at Hanford Site, Including Nuclear Waste Treatment Plant Design
Facing increased pressure over aged, leaking tanks of nuclear waste at its Hanford, Wash., cleanup site and design and construction issues on a multi-billion-dollar on-site treatment plant, the U.S. Energy Dept. aims to move some waste to the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant storage site in New Mexico.
DOE proposed last month to ship 3.1 million gallons of mixed transuranic waste from 20 of the 177 underground tanks at the huge Hanford site near the Columbia River. But the plan faces some stiff political and legal opposition. The DOE waste-transfer plan came two weeks after the agency informed officials in Washington and Oregon of new evidence that six underground tanks are leaking.