On Tuesday, the Department of Energy floated a series of ideas to speed the removal of tank waste from the Hanford site before completion of treatment equipment stalled by technical problems."This framework describes a path forward that could complete the tank waste mission sooner, compared to waiting until all technical issues are resolved and the pretreatment facility is completed," the DOE document read.The "framework" proposed for discussions with the state of Washington and others envisions bypassing the troubled pre-treatment facility and feeding some waste streams directly into the low-activity and high-level portions of the plant that can immobilize the material in glass. For low-activity waste, that would likely require an additional, interim pretreatment facility be built to remove solids and cesium, or possibly a system that can pretreat the waste and leave those substances in the tanks.The DOE also reiterated a proposal announced in March to characterize and ship transuranic waste to New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant or a mixed low-level waste disposal facility. Doing so would require a host of regulatory approvals, and the DOE estimated that putting such a plan in place would take at least three years.The proposals come as politicians in the state of Washington grow increasingly impatient with the pace of work at the former Cold War site, particularly in light of new tank leaks made public in the last year.
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