Workers at the Hanford Site’s WTP unload a tanker truck carrying sodium hydroxide. (Photo: DOE)
Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state recently unloaded a shipment of more than 10,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide delivered to the site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The liquid sodium hydroxide will be the first chemical fed into the plant’s melters to simulate Hanford’s radioactive and chemical tank waste.
An aerial view of the Hanford Site’s 200 Area and the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant. (Photo: DOE)
The U.S. Department of Energy, Washington State Department of Ecology, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have reached an agreement on revised plans for managing millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical liquid waste stored in 177 underground tanks at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash.