The Sludge Cleanout of Hanford's K Basins

摘要

Hanford workers completed a job analogous to "vacuuming under the bed in your child's room from a small hole in the ceiling above, without first picking up the toys." Victories in cleaning out the now-famous K Basins at the Hanford Site in southeast Washington State have come in rapid succession during the past year, after three years of determined effort since the spent fuel was removed in 2004. When Fluor Hanford, prime cleanup contractor to the Richland Operations Office (RL) of the U.S. Department of Energy, completed removing more than 4 million pounds of deteriorated spent fuel in October 2004, the job of cleaning out the aging basins was not finished. About 52 cubic yards (40 cubic meters) of sludge clogged the basins—enough to fill about eight standard dump trucks if the sludge were dry. Approximately three-fourths of it formed in the K East Basin.