NON-NDAA Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) at the Hanford Site (HANF) in Washington – Test Bed Initiative Demonstration (TBI)

HANF Tank SY-101 in the 200 West Area at the Hanford Sit

Operator: U.S. Department of Energy
Docket Number: PROJ0736
Tank Description:
Waste Volume: 

For WIR not covered under the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (i.e., non-NDAA WIR), the role of the NRC is: if requested by the DOE through an Interagency Agreement (i.e., the DOE funds the NRC), then the DOE will consult with the NRC and the NRC will provide a technical review evaluating the DOE documents describing how the DOE proposes to close the tank farms at the Hanford Site (HANF).
In accordance with the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (Tri Party Agreement) and State-approved closure plans, tanks in those HANF tank farms will be closed in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Washington Department of Ecology. Note that the NRC is not a party to the Tri Party Agreement.
HANF, occupying approximately 1,518 square kilometers (km2) (586 square miles (mi2)) along the Columbia River near Richland, Washington, is a former federal government plutonium production complex. The cleanup of HANF involves more than 2.0x108 liters (5.3x107 gallons) of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste in 177 underground storage tanks, with approximately 750K cubic meters (m3) (25 million cubic feet (ft3)) of buried or stored solid waste, spent nuclear fuel, and plutonium in various forms. The DOE Office of River Protection has the mission to retrieve and treat the Hanford Site's tank waste and close its tank farms to protect the Columbia River.  This TBI demonstration project concerns approximately 2,000 gallons of separated, pretreated, and solidified low-activity waste (LAW) from Tank SY-101 at HANF in Washington.

Major Non-NDAA WIR Consultation Documents For The HANF:

Document Date ADAMS Accession No.
NRC Technical Evaluation Report for the Test Bed Initiative Demonstration - 07/07/2022 ML22186A128
NRC Technical Evaluation Report for the Test Bed Initiative Demonstration - Letter 07/07/2022 ML22186A127
Transmittal of Draft WIR Evaluation for the Test Bed Initiative Demonstration at Hanford 10/29/2021 ML21322A145
U.S. Department of Energy – Draft WIR Evaluation for Test Bed Initiative Demonstration 10/29/2021 ML21343A415

Current NRC Project Manager: Maurice Heath, 301-415-3137, Maurice.Heath@nrc.gov

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