Bertha, the tunnel-boring machine that recently completed a 9,270-ft tunneling journey underneath downtown Seattle has reached the halfway point of another milestone: disassembly.
Following a partial tunnel collapse in May at Hanford’s Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant, a facility unused since the 1980s, a report from DOE and its contractor for the area, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., says a second facility tunnel, which once processed chemicals needed in nuclear production, does not meet current standards.
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) says the new contracting arrangement pioneered by Bechtel National Inc. on the Dept. of Energy’s Hanford nuclear-waste site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant—a $16.8-billion project now four times above its original budget, with 17 years of added schedule—comes with risk to taxpayers.
All the new Oregon transportation bill needs now is a signature from Gov. Kate Brown, an expected event after the $5.3 billion, 10-year package passed both the Oregon House and Oregon Senate.
It really doesn’t come at a great surprise that the second waste tunnel associated with the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) at the Dept. of Energy’s Hanford Nuclear Waste Site in southeast Washington is at risk of collapse.
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