GLOBAL NUCLEAR |


Hanford is 23 billion gallons cleaner


Pandemic fails to disrupt cleanup of soil and groundwater


Right: Protecting the Columbia River has been a key achievement of the Hanford Site cleanup


WORKERS AT THE HANFORD SITE are celebrating another year of significant progress in protecting the Columbia River. Fiscal year 2020 marked the sixth consecutive year that Hanford has treated more than 2 billion gallons of groundwater to remove contamination from decades of past operations that produced plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. The Jacobs-led CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company


(CHPRC) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Richland Operations Office have treated an average of 2.4 billion gallons of groundwater a year for the past five years. Hanford workers operate six treatment systems to


remove radioactive and chemical contaminants from groundwater along the Columbia River and an area near the center of the Hanford Site called the Central Plateau. This


is where massive chemical processing facilities separated plutonium from fission products from the 1940s through the 1980s and discharged billions of gallons of contaminated liquids to soil disposal sites. The volume of contaminated groundwater from Hanford’s


plutonium production mission hasn’t been the only challenge. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic added a further complication by limiting the number of personnel who can work at the site. Fortunately, the advanced technologies now in use made


it possible for groundwater treatment to continue largely uninterrupted. Operations managers safely monitor the systems remotely — meeting social distancing requirements while ensuring the plants continue to operate efficiently during the site’s phased remobilization of operations. “The reliability of Hanford’s treatment systems and


Right: Steve Rust, a nuclear chemical operator for for the Jacobs-led CHPRC team, monitors the performance of the 200 West Pump and Treat Facility from the control room on the Hanford Site


the experience of our team has been instrumental in our ability to consistently meet — and typically exceed — our annual treatment goals,” said Bill Barrett, Vice President of CHPRC’s soil and groundwater remediation project. “Protecting the Columbia River is the dominant force behind our ongoing groundwater treatment efforts. Over the past decade, we have seen a significant reduction in the areas of contamination near the river.” Hanford has treated more than 23 billion gallons of


groundwater and removed nearly 600 tons of contaminants since the first groundwater facilities began operating in the mid-1990s. The treatment systems have removed most of the chromium contamination along the Columbia River and hundreds of tons of nitrates on the Central Plateau, as well as other contaminants of concern such as carbon tetrachloride, uranium, and technetium-99. ■


To learn more: colin.jones@jacobs.com | 11


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