nuclear-news

New Mexico to get Hanford nuclear wastes

Workers entered in groups of three or four wearing three layers of protective clothing and breathing through air hoses,.. [wastes] will be shipped in a waste box to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for disposal.

Complex cleanup work at Hanford plutonium plant, Seattle Times , Annette Cary, 21 Feb 2011, Hanford workers have begun the complex task of removing 196 “pencil tanks” contaminated with plutonium from inside an enclosed, canyon like room at the nuclear reservation’s Plutonium Finishing Plant……
About 65 entries were made into the canyon from the only entrance that has not been sealed. Workers entered in groups of three or four wearing three layers of protective clothing and breathing through air hoses,……..The pencil tanks are being removed with the crane and then hung in the nearby maintenance bay. Workers can reach inside the maintenance area through gloves attached to ports at different heights up and down the bay…….steel container, which is lowered into a cardboard tube that will be wrapped in a sealed, clean plastic sleeve as it is removed from the maintenance bay. That goes into a PVC tube that will be shipped in a waste box to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for disposal.

Local News | Complex cleanup work at Hanford plutonium plant | Seattle Times Newspaper

February 22, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes