Nearly two decades after design and construction began on what became a $17-billion multi-part facility set to treat millions of gallons of nuclear waste stored in below-ground tanks at the U.S. Dept. of Energy Hanford former weapons site in eastern Washington, work has largely finished on one facility to treat the least contaminated but largest volume of site wastes to meet a cleanup deadline.
The construction completion by Bechtel National moves a key part of the Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant into the startup phase, with the next step permanently firing the first of two 300-ton melters by the end of 2021 in a “vitrification” process that will turn nuclear and chemical wastes into glass logs for permanent onsite burial.