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RE: Hanford Site Cleanup Standards and CERCLA
Ruth Weiner wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM [mailto:RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 11:16 AM
To: William V Lipton
Cc: BLHamrick@AOL.COM; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Hanford Site Cleanup Standards and CERCLA
<snip>
2. Storage of the fuel on the K-basins resulted from the shutdown of plutonium production. Prior to 1989, irradiated fuel from the N-reactor went remotely by rail to PUREX, where plutonium and neptunium were extracted. The waste in the tanks was from PUREX and earlier processes. Once PUREX was shut down, what do you suggest should have been done with the irradiated fuel? Many of us would much have preferred gradual shutdown and making MOX fuel, but that was vetoed by your anti-nuke pals.
3. Yes, if there were substantial leakage of K-basin water into the Columbia and it were allowed to continue, the K-basins would pose a threat. It's a potential threat now rather than an actual one. Anyway, the basins are in the process of being emptied and the fuel moved away from the river, and as you might guess, that can't be done overnight. The move began as far as I recollect, around 1999. Maybe you could do it quicker.
<snip>
Ruth
===================
When we took a rough cut at Hanford Site risks/hazards about 10 years ago, the K-Basin risk that stood out was not leakage to the Columbia. As with other Hanford Site groundwater flows, leakage into the Columbia is so massively deleted as to not be a downstream problem. On the other hand, residual chemical reactivity in the metal fuel, both K-Basin-East fuel stored in contact with pool water and K-Basin West fuel stored in "sealed" containers, raised the issue of initiating events that could expose the fuel and corrosion products to rapid oxidation, all sort of speculative, but within the bounds of possibility. After an arduous design/testing process, the K-Basin removal project settled on a process for vacuum drying of the metal fuel, canning in an inert atmosphere, and putting the cans in massive canisters that are moved up onto the plateau for long term dry storage in a dedicated facility. That process is now well underway, although I couldn't give you an end date off
!
t!
he top of my head. We didn't see the sludge as being a significant hazard, since it is basically already-oxidized corrosion products and, apparently, around 15-20% insect "parts".
Best regards.
Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov
These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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