Savannah River Lab, Hanford Collaborate on Tank Waste Cleanup Mission

RICHLAND, Wash. – More than 100 people from Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the Hanford Site recently participated in a workshop in which they shared analytical knowledge focused on EM’s tank waste cleanup mission.

SRNL partnered with Hanford Site contractors Navarro-ATL and Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) to create the workshop. It was sponsored by SRNL, the DOE Laboratory Policy Office, Office of River Protection (ORP) and WRPS, and hosted by Navarro-ATL. Also joining the workshop were Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Waste Treatment Completion Company, a subcontractor to Bechtel National Inc., which is designing, building and commissioning the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant for ORP.

Workshop goals included sharing state-of-the-art knowledge on tank waste analytical methods and strategies needed for waste batch qualification while keeping the analysts’ exposure to radiation as low as reasonably achievable. The workshop provided a forum for discussion among researchers to exchange details, optimize analytical methods and share lessons learned and planned improvements.

SRNL has worked for many years to qualify batches of waste for both the Defense Waste Processing Facility and the pretreatment processes at Savannah River Site and has made many improvements to the analytical methods. These methods used by SRNL were described so that they may be adapted for use at Hanford’s 222-S Laboratory as ORP accelerates tank waste retrieval and treatment.

The meeting was followed by a tour of the 222-S Laboratory, allowing SRNL researchers to better understand capabilities and limitations of the instruments and facilities there, and to facilitate more detailed discussions.

The workshop is expected to be the first in a series of interactions between the laboratories to continue optimizing analytical methods for tank waste batch qualification and to identify and find solutions to knowledge gaps affecting the ability to meet waste acceptance criteria for the treatment facilities.