Treated waste from the Hanford site’s leaking underground tanks continues to move incrementally through what local officials consider the world’s most cutting-edge treatment facility as workers assess its systems and infrastructure.

But it could still be years before the plant is fully operational.

As of March 11, 52,251 gallons of waste have been vitrified and stored in 35 casks, according to Bechtel National, the contractor that designed and built the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste, or DFLAW, facility at the Waste Treatment Plant, better known as the vitrification or vit plant.

That’s nearly double the number of storage casks that were filled as of early December, less than two months after Bechtel began the hot commissioning process for the vit plant. And in the coming months, workers will test whether the facility can run both of the melters it uses to treat waste at the same time.

“Our team has turned progress into momentum, and we’re committed to carrying that forward through continued operations,” said Brian Hartman, project director and senior vice president with Bechtel for the vit plant, in a statement when Bechtel announced it filled 20 storage casks with vitrified waste.

And in April, DOE and contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company announced that the first stainless steel containers containing vitrified waste are now permanently stored at a designated special disposal facility on the Hanford site. 

Even with that progress, it will likely be some time before the facility is vitrifying tank waste 24/7 as intended.

The state Department of Ecology confirmed to the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has until Oct. 15, 2028, to have the facility running at 70% capacity – equivalent to creating 21 metric tons of vitrified waste per day – to meet a legally-binding consent decree.

Based on the amount of waste treated so far since the vit plant began the hot commissioning process on Oct. 15, it is creating 1.6 metric tons of vitrified waste per day on average.

DOE did not respond to requests for comment on its progress toward the goal of the vit plant’s full operation.

A vit plant team off-loads sodium hydroxide, into the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) Facility. Liquid sodium hydroxide is used as simulant feed for the DFLAW melters and treats byproducts generated during operations.

| Photo courtesy Bechtel

New treatment era

Ray Geimer, director of the Hanford Field Office for DOE's Office of Environmental Management, said the site is entering a new era after decades of preparation and construction.

“For many years, this mission was about building the capability to treat waste and address some of the most complex environmental challenges in the country,” Geimer said at a recent Waste Management Symposium in Phoenix, Arizona. “Today we are beginning to see that investment pay off as we move into sustained cleanup operations that reduce risk and deliver real progress.”

Hanford officials have long said the vit plant is the largest and most technically sophisticated radioactive waste treatment plant in the world. It cost billions of dollars and took decades to build with the goal of processing the 56 million gallons of waste stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford, a legacy of nuclear weapons manufacturing dating back to World War II and the Cold War.  

The DFLAW facility is fed the tank waste and then mixes it with a tailored blend of chemicals to turn it into a glass form for stable and safe long-term storage. That treated waste is then stored at Hanford’s Integrated Disposal Facility. 

Once the facility moves out of the hot commissioning process, contractor Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure, or H2C, will take on day-to-day operations.

Grout and glass

Ecology and other Hanford watchdogs have kept a close eye on how DOE moves forward with the vit plant over the past year. There were concerns in the weeks before the hot commissioning deadline that the Trump administration wanted to move away from vitrification in favor of grouting, a cheaper and faster, but more controversial, treatment method. 

DOE Secretary Chris Wright denied that there was a change of course but not before state officials, including Gov. Bob Ferguson, warned they would pursue legal avenues if hot commissioning did not start on time.

DOE is currently seeking a change to its permit for operating the vit plant that would allow it to grout rather than vitrify the less hazardous waste that is created as part of the vitrification process. That request is currently under review with Ecology, with a response expected in late May.

A March report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office indicated that DOE officials along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state reached an agreement in January that includes a plan to grout some of Hanford’s low-activity tank waste and dispose of it off-site.

“The agreement contemplates that (Environmental Management) will grout low-activity waste from 22 tanks assuming (it) has a regulatory pathway to grout the waste and dispose of it off-site,” according to the report.