Full Title: Hanford Cleanup: DOE Has Opportunities to Better Ensure Effective Startup and Sustained Low-Activity Waste Operations
Author(s): U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Publisher(s): U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Publication Date: June 14, 2022
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
There are 54 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste being held in aging underground storage tanks at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington State.
DOE created the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste program to help treat some of this waste, and built and modified several waste treatment facilities. These facilities are mostly complete but DOE faces challenges in starting operations. For example, some equipment is likely to be obsolete by the time operations begin, which could delay the schedule and increase costs.
We recommended that DOE ensure these issues are resolved during a test phase before starting normal operations.