For eight years, Duratek has been a major subcontractor on the Project Hanford Management Contract (PHMC) team, which is responsible for cleanup of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state. Fluor Hanford is the prime contractor.

Duratek is involved in facility operations, transportation, and waste disposition projects across the site. One of these is the retrieval and disposition of drums containing transuranic (TRU) waste. TRU waste is any material (clothing, tools, etc.) that is contaminated with radioactive elements heavier than uranium, a naturally occurring element. In most cases, the contaminating element is plutonium and occurred from the research, testing, and development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

At the time they were packed, the 55-gallon drums were suspected of containing levels of transuranic material that exceeded the DOE guidelines for on-site burial. So they were set aside until a national repository for the permanent disposal of TRU waste could be made available. That repository is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, which opened in 1999 to receive TRU waste from DOE facilities across the country. At the time of waste generation, the drums were stacked on an asphalt pad up to four layers high, with plywood boards separating each layer. They were then draped with heavy-duty tarps and covered with dirt. Workers, wearing appropriate safety gear such as personal dosimeters (that measure radiation) and protective clothing/equipment, inspect each drum for cracks and dents. They then compare the drum number to Hanford storage records to determine what is inside each drum. If necessary, a method of nondestructive assay is used to verify what category of waste the contents would fit into: TRU or mixed low-level radioactive waste. The drum is then moved to Hanford’s Central Waste Complex, an interim storage facility. Drums containing low-level mixed waste are processed to meet waste acceptance criteria for burial on-site. The drums filled with TRU waste are prepared for shipment to WIPP for permanent disposal.

Since retrieval operations began in October 2003, Duratek employees have retrieved 3,400 drums. Fluor Hanford expects to retrieve approximately 6,000 of the 37,000 drums in 2004. Dale McKenney, Duratek employee and deputy director of PHMC’s Waste Disposal/Groundwater Remediation Project said, “The ramp-up in retrieval operations represents significant progress in meeting goals for Hanford Site cleanup, in particular goals that were recently negotiated with Washington State Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Project Agency.”

Marking a record achievement, twelve shipments of TRU waste were shipped from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford Site in Washington State to WIPP in May 2004. “Sending twelve shipments in one month marks a new level in TRU shipping for us,” said Dick Wilde, vice president of Waste Disposal/Groundwater Remediation Project, which operates the TRU Waste Program for the Hanford Site. “A year ago, we sent three shipments in April and that was an unprecedented achievement.” This rise in shipments underscores the accelerated efforts to get TRU waste off the Hanford Site and into permanent disposal. Rick Dunn, Duratek employee and director of Fluor Hanford’s TRU Program, said, “We made our goal of twelve shipments in May, and we plan to sustain that rate for the rest of fiscal year 2004.”