Radioactive waste storage tanks at the Hanford Site

Conference · Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1990

OSTI ID:6670409

Wodrich, D D

The Hanford Site in south-central Washington State has been a major US Government facility for the production of nuclear materials for nuclear weapons and research and development since the early 1940s. Today, its nuclear material production mission is drawing to a close, and the major mission is waste management and environmental restoration. This paper describes one area of waste management: the storage and disposal of the radioactive waste in underground tanks. Large underground storage tanks have been the central waste management facilities at the Hanford Site. The liquid radioactive wastes resulting from chemically processing nuclear reactor spent fuel to recover the plutonium and uranium have been neutralized and sent to these tanks for the past 46 years. Liquid wastes from other processes, laboratories, and reactor decontamination solutions have also been sent to the tanks. Also, the wastes have been concentrated, selected radioisotopes removed, and the different waste types intermingled. This large volume of multiple waste types, much of it stored in old facilities, presents a challenging waste disposal effort. 18 figs.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/EM
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-87RL10930
• OSTI ID: 6670409
• Report Number(s): WHC-SA-0937; CONF-9006199-2; ON: DE90017234
• Resource Relation: Conference: United States delegation to the Soviet Union on environmental restoration and waste management conference, Moscow (USSR), 15-29 Jun 1990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
HANFORD RESERVATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
TANKS
UNDERGROUND STORAGE
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
PLUTONIUM
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE
RECOVERY
REPROCESSING
SPENT FUELS
UNDERGROUND DISPOSAL
URANIUM
ACTINIDES
CONTAINERS
ELEMENTS
ENERGY SOURCES
EXPLOSIONS
FUELS
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
METALS
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NUCLEAR FUELS
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
REACTOR MATERIALS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
STORAGE
TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS
US DOE
US ERDA
US ORGANIZATIONS
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE STORAGE
WASTES
052002* - Nuclear Fuels- Waste Disposal & Storage