Flawed pretreatment technology: pipes developed holes after testing in December
Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant is a cornerstone of the Hanford cleanup. This facility is too important to fail: the plant’s job will be to mix millions of gallons of high level nuclear waste with glass so that it is immobilized, transportable and most importantly, will prevent the radioactive waste from leaking out of the tanks it is currently stored in. Unfortunately, whistleblowers have come forward with serious technical and safety concerns for the plant. See a timeline of reports on the Waste Treatment Plant from 2001 to the present.
Tom Carpenter urges the Secretary of Energy to institute a rule on a Safety-Conscious Work Environment for the nuclear complex. Read the letter, December 12, 2011
Hanford Challenge Statement: Bechtel’s Report on Safety Culture at Hanford finds No Problem, Blames Safety Oversight for Causing Hostility, December 1, 2011. Here’s a link to the Bechtel Report.
Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant has become known mostly for its cost overruns, design problems, and delays. Hanford Challenge is concerned that insufficient quality control could make the plant prone to disastrous accidents and is promoting the exploration of new technologies to stabilize Hanford’s tank waste.
The Waste Treatment Plant is over 60% constructed, despite serious design concerns.
The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), also known as the “Vit Plant,” is the largest, most expensive environmental remediation project in the world. Still under construction, the job of the WTP is to stabilize the large inventory of high-level nuclear waste from Hanford’s Tank Farms in glass logs, a process called vitrification. WTP is a one-of-a-kind facility built to solve an incredibly complicated problem and has encountered several setbacks – both foreseeable and unforeseeable.
In 2000, DOE awarded Bechtel National, Inc. a $4.3 billion, 11 year contract to design and construct a plant to treat the entire 53 million gallon radioactive and hazardous tank waste inventory, to be operational in 2007. Nine years later, the cost estimate has nearly tripled to $12.3 billion while performance expectations have dwindled. Now, only half of the underground tank waste will be vitrified in the WTP, due to issues with the chemistry of the waste. The plant is now scheduled to open in 2019 (an optimistic assessment) and will cost $45 – $60 billion to operate over its 28 year expected lifespan.
Our Concerns
Setbacks aside, Hanford Challenge is most concerned with safety and quality issues at the Vit Plant and DOE and Bechtel’s lack of transparency in resolving them. Throughout WTP’s design and construction many avoidable flaws have been exposed. There is no doubt that the stabilization of Hanford’s tank waste is a complex challenge that presents design and construction challenges. While some corrective actions have been taken, uncertainty about the quality of the materials and an overly complex design has created a complicated mess that seems to be spinning out of control. Some examples:
Quality Assurance is the overall system required by the government to ensure a nuclear facility meets exacting material and design standards to ensure safe operation. The failure of even one component in a nuclear setting can be a very serious matter. In 2008, an independent engineering firm (Dana Engineering) conducted a review of the WTP on behalf of Washington State’s Department of Ecology. They concluded that Bechtel is failing to fully meet critical aspects of the Quality Assurance criteria. This leads Quality Assurance experts we’ve consulted to declare the WTP “quality indeterminate.”
Some processes at WTP will take place in so-called “black cells”, which, once made operational, can never again be entered by because of the intense radiation. The equipment in black cells – the valves, piping, electrical switches, etc. – is expected to last the lifetime of the WTP without any maintenance or replacement. Because of the extremely high temperatures required the reality that nuclear waste is among the most toxic materials on Earth, the integrity of the facility must meet exacting standards for equipment, parts, and quality of work to prevent catastrophe. Unfortunately, there is a high degree of uncertainty about Bechtel’s Quality Assurance regime – see above.
In a now-famous example of a foreseeable design flaw (see video at right), the Vit Plant was built to an insufficient seismic standard, costing billions to correct and adding years of delay.
Chemistry issues unique to Hanford’s tank waste, high levels of chromium, aluminum and sulfate, make it more difficult to vitrify. Overcoming these issues necessitate diluting the waste and the addition of more chemicals – sodium hydroxide. These measures will increase the quantity of vitrified “product” but decrease the amount of tank waste that can be stabilized in the glass.
Delays in construction can actually harm the WTP equipment. As parts await installation, they are exposed to weather and may become corroded to the point that they present maintenance challenges and safety risks.
Design flaws have lead to construction workarounds that can change how waste will be transported. In some cases it is uncertain if the thick waste – often described as having the consistency of peanut butter – will be able to travel through the designed pathways due to improvised sharp curves in piping.
Walter Tamosaitis & Current WTP Concerns
We moved the updates on Dr. Walter Tamosaitis and his case to a different page! You can find updates and information here.
New Ideas Needed!
Hanford Challenge is very concerned about the state of the Waste Treatment Plant. The DOE needs to rethink its goals for this troubled facility and seek alternative methods to stabilize the 53 million gallons of waste before more of it leaks from aging underground tanks, contaminates the groundwater and really becomes a problem.
Russian engineers have developed a formulation of glass for their nuclear waste vitrification program that may be helpful at Hanford. An American process engineer has concluded that the iron phosphate glass used in Russia is robust enough that it can stabilize Hanford’s waste without needing the most complicated part of WTP, the Pretreatment Facility, with its complex chemical processes and ultrafiltration systems.
There are methods of stabilizing the waste while it remains in the tanks. Crystal fractionalization and Spin Tech filtration both hold out some promise to reduce the risk to our groundwater, Columbia River and wider region posed by Hanford’s tank waste.
Additional links:
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s letter to Assistant Secretary of Energy Huizenga on the Waste Treatment Plant Ammonia Control System. September 13, 2011
The Defense Nulcear Facilities Safety Board recommendations and letter to Secretary Chu on safety culture at the Waste Treatment Plant.
Public Comments (scroll down page after following link) submitted to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board as part of their investigation into the safety culture at the Waste Treatment Plant.
2010 Letter on Criticalities and Fires could result from design failures in mixing of Hanford Waste, letter from Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Anonymous letter from someone “on the ground at WTP” describing the reasons why Quality Assurance and Quality Control are in poor condition at the vit plant.
Nuclear Regulator Commission report, NUREG 1747, a 2001 report cataloguing Bechtel’s Quality Assurance deficiencies at WTP.
“Evading the Issue: A review of the August 2008 Report to the U.S. Congress about safety regulation at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Waste Treatment Plant” by Robert Alvarez
Waste Treatment Plant
Flawed pretreatment technology: pipes developed holes after testing in December
Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant is a cornerstone of the Hanford cleanup. This facility is too important to fail: the plant’s job will be to mix millions of gallons of high level nuclear waste with glass so that it is immobilized, transportable and most importantly, will prevent the radioactive waste from leaking out of the tanks it is currently stored in. Unfortunately, whistleblowers have come forward with serious technical and safety concerns for the plant. See a timeline of reports on the Waste Treatment Plant from 2001 to the present.
Future of WTP Unclear as DOE looks to solve lingering technical issues, Weapons Complex Monitor, June 29, 2012
Briefing paper on the Waste Treatment Plant, March 2, 2012.
Inspector General Audit Report on Black Cell technology at the Waste Treatment Plant, Results in Brief, April 30, 2012
Letter to Secretary Chu from Allyn Boldt, retired Hanford engineer, on the Waste Treatment Plant, May 14, 2012
DOE Safety Office: URS Mgmt. acted improperly in WTP safety probe, Weapons Complex Monitor, March 22, 2012
Tom Carpenter urges the Secretary of Energy to institute a rule on a Safety-Conscious Work Environment for the nuclear complex. Read the letter, December 12, 2011
Markey Queries DOE on Whistleblowers, Safety Issues at Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, November 22, 2011; See Letter, Business Week article
Lack of Nuclear Safety Culture to Blame for Vit Plant Costs and Delays, Hanford Challenge Statement 11/21/2011
Suppression of Nuclear Safety Concerns Intensifies at the WTP:
News Coverage
Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant has become known mostly for its cost overruns, design problems, and delays. Hanford Challenge is concerned that insufficient quality control could make the plant prone to disastrous accidents and is promoting the exploration of new technologies to stabilize Hanford’s tank waste.
In this section, you will find:
Background
The Waste Treatment Plant is over 60% constructed, despite serious design concerns.
The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), also known as the “Vit Plant,” is the largest, most expensive environmental remediation project in the world. Still under construction, the job of the WTP is to stabilize the large inventory of high-level nuclear waste from Hanford’s Tank Farms in glass logs, a process called vitrification. WTP is a one-of-a-kind facility built to solve an incredibly complicated problem and has encountered several setbacks – both foreseeable and unforeseeable.
In 2000, DOE awarded Bechtel National, Inc. a $4.3 billion, 11 year contract to design and construct a plant to treat the entire 53 million gallon radioactive and hazardous tank waste inventory, to be operational in 2007. Nine years later, the cost estimate has nearly tripled to $12.3 billion while performance expectations have dwindled. Now, only half of the underground tank waste will be vitrified in the WTP, due to issues with the chemistry of the waste. The plant is now scheduled to open in 2019 (an optimistic assessment) and will cost $45 – $60 billion to operate over its 28 year expected lifespan.
Our Concerns
Setbacks aside, Hanford Challenge is most concerned with safety and quality issues at the Vit Plant and DOE and Bechtel’s lack of transparency in resolving them. Throughout WTP’s design and construction many avoidable flaws have been exposed. There is no doubt that the stabilization of Hanford’s tank waste is a complex challenge that presents design and construction challenges. While some corrective actions have been taken, uncertainty about the quality of the materials and an overly complex design has created a complicated mess that seems to be spinning out of control. Some examples:
Walter Tamosaitis & Current WTP Concerns
We moved the updates on Dr. Walter Tamosaitis and his case to a different page! You can find updates and information here.
New Ideas Needed!
Hanford Challenge is very concerned about the state of the Waste Treatment Plant. The DOE needs to rethink its goals for this troubled facility and seek alternative methods to stabilize the 53 million gallons of waste before more of it leaks from aging underground tanks, contaminates the groundwater and really becomes a problem.
Russian engineers have developed a formulation of glass for their nuclear waste vitrification program that may be helpful at Hanford. An American process engineer has concluded that the iron phosphate glass used in Russia is robust enough that it can stabilize Hanford’s waste without needing the most complicated part of WTP, the Pretreatment Facility, with its complex chemical processes and ultrafiltration systems.
There are methods of stabilizing the waste while it remains in the tanks. Crystal fractionalization and Spin Tech filtration both hold out some promise to reduce the risk to our groundwater, Columbia River and wider region posed by Hanford’s tank waste.
Additional links: