Tank's First Cut Is the Deepest To Push Hanford Site Cleanup

摘要

A55-in.-dia cut into a rebar-rein-forced underground concrete tank with hardened nuclear waste, the largest slice ever into such a U.S. Energy Dept. storage structure, went "perfectly" on Dec. 19, says a site cleanup official. In what may become the norm at DOE's Hanford site in eastern Washington state and possibly at other U.S. waste sites, crews from Boston-based AK Services used a pressurized mix of garnet and water to methodically etch away the 172-in. circumference of the tank, says Kent Smith, deputy manager of retrieval and closure operations for Washington River Protection Services, a site contractor.