DOE Notes Work Progressing at Hanford
The River Corridor is about halfway to its 2015 cleanup goal, the Department of Energy's Richland Operations Office reports.
Contractors with the Department of Energy (DOE) Richland Operations' Office made a great deal of cleanup progress at the Hanford Site in 2010, according to DOE reports.
A few of the major accomplishments of its River Corridor, Central Plateau, and Mission Support contractors are listed below.
River Corridor
To date, approximately half of the cleanup in the Hanford Site’s 220-square-mile River Corridor is complete. The largest closure project in the complex, DOE has set a 2015 goal for cleanup.
River Corridor contractor, Washington Closure Hanford achieved 2.7 million safe work hours in 2010; transported and disposed of 5 million tons of hazardous waste from the Columbia River to the lined disposal facility; and decontaminated, demolished, and loaded out debris on 142 buildings and remediated 149 waste sites and burial grounds in 2010.
In addition, the contractor completed all of its regulatory milestones in 2010.
Central Plateau
CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company has been busy on the Hanford Site with Recovery Act funding demolishing excess facilities, improving groundwater treatment, removing legacy wastes, and reducing the Hanford Site’s active cleanup footprint.
The company also performed the following:
- completed drilling more than 280 wells to help extract, treat, and characterize contaminated groundwater;
- continued removing legacy waste and fuels from Hanford, repackaging 490 cubic meters of contact-handled transuranic (TRU) waste to support TRU shipments and shipping 700 cubic meters of mixed/low-level waste to help reduce the inventory at Hanford’s Central Waste Complex; Waste, Receiving and Process Facility; and T Plant; and
- completed construction and began operating the 100-DX pump and treat system, adding an additional 20 million gallons per month of groundwater treatment capacity.
Progress on the 100-HX pump and treat system continues along the Columbia River, which will expand and enhance groundwater treatment at the Hanford Site. Since July 2010, the facility is nearly enclosed and on target to be operational in 2011.
Mission Support
The prime contractor for the Mission Support Contract provides a wide range of infrastructure, security, health and safety, and facility management services and also leads site-wide initiatives and integratesng infrastructure services.
In 2010, the Mission Support Alliance:
- identified more than $20 million in cost savings during the first year while experiencing a 25 percent increase in service requests due to Recovery Act funding;
- reduced MSA carbon dioxide emissions on the site by 36 percent using Ethanol 85 alternative fuel; and
- invested more than $4 million of corporate funds on key Hanford initiatives.