The Department of Energy notified its regulators — the Washington State Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency — on Friday that the deadline could not be met.
But the end remains in sight after two decades of work on cleanup of a plant left highly radioactively contaminated after 40 years of service to the nation.
“Tremendous progress has been made, but for safety and other reasons it will take a few more months,” Doug Shoop, manager of the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office, said on Friday. Weather and improvements to better protect workers after the spread of radioactive contamination have put the cleanup and demolition project on a slower pace than anticipated over the past nine months.
Work has been underway since the ’90s to prepare the plant for demolition, including stabilizing plutonium left in a liquid solution at the plant when it shut down.
Workers have cleaned plutonium and other hazardous material from about 200 pieces of processing equipment and glove boxes. They also have cleaned out 1.5 miles of contaminated ventilation piping and plutonium processing lines, removing most of it from the plant.
Officials at the Department of Ecology are disappointed in the delay, said Ron Skinnerland, manager of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program’s waste management section.
But they understand there are good reasons for work to take longer, and they support safe working conditions for employees at the plant, he said.
“We want them to complete the work and do it safely,” he said……..http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article171012302.html
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