Round-the-clock

staffing is in place at the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant as

Bechtel National Inc. prepares to process low-activity waste by 2023, but

possibly as soon as 2022. There hasn’t been 24/7 staffing at Hanford in more

than 20 years.

Earlier

this year, the analytical laboratory at the plant entered its startup phase,

marking the first major facility to begin full systems testing mode.

“We

are in phases we have never been before,” said Staci West, Bechtel’s

communications manager for the plant.

The

overall goal is to process nuclear waste at the site using vitrification, a

method of permanently disposing of waste by mixing it with glass-forming

materials.

The

planning and construction of the plant got underway nearly 20 years ago, at an

expected cost of $17 billion, with the end result being the world’s largest

radioactive waste treatment plant.

A project commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy,

the completed vit plant will process 56 million gallons of radioactive and

chemical waste currently stored in underground tanks, following decades of

plutonium production at Hanford. The existing tanks are not a long-term

solution for the waste, as dozens are leaking and pose a threat to the

environment.

The decadeslong project is a multi-phase operation,

beginning with construction, followed by startup procedures, and an eventual

transition to commissioning and operation. For example, the analytical

laboratory on the vit plant site was only ready to move into the startup phase

after 34 systems were tested, with the last being electrical. From there, the

equipment and systems will be tested meticulously to ensure they are in working

order before the lab enters the commissioning phase, which includes operations.

Startup testing at the lab is expected to finish this year.

The

first set of 22 commissioning technicians are on the job in the control room of

the low-activity waste, or LAW, facility. Working alongside eight supervisors

and four engineers, the staff will eventually grow to nearly 350 employees in

the next 18 months.

 Commissioning technicians are cross-trained on

more than 200 systems in the LAW facility, effluent management facility

analytical laboratory and other support facilities. Training is done in a

17,000-square-foot building with a full-scale functional replica of the LAW

control room.

The

purpose of the lab is to confirm that glass produced meets regulatory

requirements and standards. Processing will take place during direct feed

low-activity waste, or DFLAW, operations, bringing the waste directly from the

tank farms, which are managed by Washington River Protection Solutions, and to

the LAW facility. It requires the two to work in concert with each other.

“WPRS

is also working to design and build the systems necessary to supply the vit

plant with a steady diet of waste to support eventual operations,” said Robert

Roxburgh, deputy manager of communications and public relations for WRPS. “The

tank-side cesium removal system will separate both cesium and undissolved solid

materials from radioactive tank waste, providing a low-activity waste stream

that can be sent to the WTP for vitrification.”

Benefits

of a DFLAW approach are touted as safe storage of long-term waste, reduction of

any short-term risks to the environment by targeting mobile constituents, and

the creation of additional double-shell tank space.

The analytical lab was intentionally built next door to

the LAW facility, where technicians within the lab are expected to analyze

about 3,000 samples each year. Since not all waste is identical, the process

will determine what materials should be mixed with each sample to create a

glass log that meets regulatory requirements. The logs will be stored on the

Hanford site until a national repository is identified.

Bechtel

and the Department of Energy are working to meet a court-ordered deadline at

the end of 2023 to begin treating low-level waste. This date was determined

through a consent decree in 2016, which set a legally-binding schedule to

retrieve waste from the tanks and continue construction of the plant.

Plant

operations were originally expected by the end of 2018 but after problems arose

with the high-level waste and pretreatment facilities, the project shifted

focus to DFLAW configurations instead. This now includes the Dec. 31, 2023,

deadline for treating LAW, and a Dec. 31, 2033, deadline for treating

high-level waste.

Goals

for the remainder of 2019 include delivering all DFLAW major equipment and bulk

materials, completing the startup of the analytical laboratory and installing

equipment necessary for the final support structure, the effluent management

facility, or EMF.

There

are 20 support facilities that make up the Balance of Facilities, or BOF, on

the campus, with 14 dedicated to low-activity waste and the remaining six to be

built in future phases to treat high-level waste. The EMF is part of the DFLAW

process, receiving secondary liquids generated from the LAW facility to be

treated and transferred to the liquid effluent retention facility, which sends

back any remaining concentrate to go through vitrification.

Bechtel

is planning to simulate a loss of power during a test planned in fall 2020 to

ensure the facility’s melters would remain functional despite a blackout.

Bechtel leadership calls this a “crucial” test toward moving into the operation

phase for the LAW facility. The melters are considered the heart of the

vitrification process since they heat the waste and chemicals so they may be

turned into glass form.

The

loss-of-power test is one of many processes described as “methodical,”

encompassing a series of reviews paired with rigorous documentation.

“As

we meet different milestones, we can do the next set that we haven’t done

before,” said George Rangel senior communications specialist at the vit plant.

Rangel

said as crews prepare to hand over any facilities from startup testing to the

commissioning phase, “workers are hands on to develop processes and procedures

that will govern their work.”

As

the procedures roll along, the plant’s workforce needs also shift.

Right

now, about 2,600 people work at the site, but eventually that number is

expected to fall to 1,500 to 1,800.

“Once

we start operations, there will be a steady workforce for DFLAW,” West said.

“It will be smaller than what was required to build it, but there will still be

a steady workforce.” This includes transitions from construction workers to

chemists, who will be needed on the commissioning team. Some of these chemists

currently are working inside a lab at Columbia Basin College to ensure workers

train on the same equipment they will eventually use in the analytical

laboratory.

“In

the next one to two months, some of those workers will begin working out of the

lab for the first time,” West said.

Startup and testing also recently got

underway for four utility buildings that are part of the support infrastructure

that make up the BOF on the vit plant site, containing 56 systems. The utility

buildings include the anhydrous ammonia facility, former glass storage

facility, chiller compressor building and steam plant building. All are

scheduled to complete the startup phase within 2019. Bechtel promotes that once

complete, the BOF will have a chilled water system that could cool 23,500

houses, a fuel oil storage that could fill the gas tanks of 11,500 cars and a

compressed air system that could fill the Goodyear blimp in three minutes.

About half of the BOF systems are in the commissioning phase, another 24 are in

the startup phase and the final five are preparing to be turned over from

construction to startup.

When complete, the “first-of-a-kind

project” will cover 65 acres and include four nuclear facilities covering

pretreatment, the analytical laboratory, LAW facility and high-level waste

facility, besides other operations and maintenance buildings, utilities and

office space.

The footprint of the plant itself

is equivalent to the size of 1.5 football fields and 12 stories high. Bechtel

describes the vit plant as a “feat of engineering and construction at an

unprecedented level,” making it the “largest undertaking of its kind and one of

the Department of Energy’s most technically challenging cleanup projects.”