Savannah River Site's Radioactive Waste Tanks Set for Operational Closure before Deadline

摘要

Operational closure of two of the Savannah River Site's high-level radioactive waste tanks will be completed in September, months before the Dec. 31 deadline set by the South Caroljna Department of Health and Environmental Control, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reports. Work began April 2 to fill emptied tanks 18 and 19 with more than 3.2 million gallons of grout. There are 49 underground storage tanks at the site, each containing as much as 1.3 million gallons apiece of waste generated by nuclear weapons programs housed there since the 1950s. The closure process includes removing and processing the waste from the tanks before filling them with a thickened, custom-made grout to permanently seal them in place.