New Hanford Display at Richland Public Library

by Heather John, education & community outreach specialist, Nuclear Waste Program

As a new hire to Ecology’s public involvement team, I was certainly excited to get my feet wet in the education outreach pool. But not being a native to Tri-Cities, I definitely had a lot to learn about Hanford before I could start finding creative ways to teach others. Everything from local history and legends to the science of radioactivity and the history of the Cold War was on my agenda. Because I was new to all of this, I thought the best method to learn was to start from the beginning and collect all the facts I could.

Hanford’s Big Dig

By Ginger Wireman, community outreach & environmental education specialist, Nuclear Waste Program


These pictures(above) show the green trail of hexavalent chromium in the bottom of the excavation. The soil and gravel are saturated. This is the top of the water table. (Photo taken Dec. 18, 2014)


This photo was taken January 27. The white dot is a barrel that blew into the pit during a recent windstorm. For scale it is about 10’ in diameter. Materials at the bottom of the pit are being sampled to see how much chromium remains and to help establish a path forward.

Sometimes chasing waste at Hanford is like digging to China. One big challenge for us is trying to trace historic hexavalent chromium contamination. It’s not just child’s play. This is serious business.

Chromium-6, or hexavalent chromium, was discovered in the soil around Hanford’s D Reactor in April 2008. Chromium was used as a corrosion inhibitor for eight of the nine reactors along the Columbia River that produced nuclear weapons materials at Hanford. Hexavalent chromium is a carcinogen, and can be easily transported into human cells. It also may cause damage to aquatic ecosystems. Limiting the amount that enters the Columbia River is critical. The telltale sign of yellowish-green-stained soil that identifies chromium contamination luckily makes chasing this plume much easier than following other soil contamination. It leaves its own trail.

Hanford’s “pump and treat” system

Across Hanford’s 100-D Area, a pump and treat system is being used to remove contamination from groundwater. In pump and treat systems, contaminated groundwater is extracted and run through chemical resins to remove contaminants, and clean water comes out the other side. In this case, the clean water is then injected back into the ground outside the contaminated area. It then flows back through the chromium-contaminated portion of the aquifer, and the contaminated water is again extracted and sent to the pump and treat facility. This is known as active treatment, because water is actively directed through the contaminated zone to push the contamination towards the well and shrink the area of contamination.

In addition to pump and treat, workers dig and remove contaminated soil at Hanford. But at 85 feet deep, the three-acre excavation at 100-D hit groundwater. Groundwater in this spot is directly connected to the Columbia River. In fact, there is so much movement between the Columbia River channel and the adjacent groundwater, that monitoring results show wide variations in near shore wells throughout the year. Less contamination is detected when the river is high because of the dilution from the river mixing with groundwater. As the river drops in fall and winter, the recharge from the river to groundwater decreases, and water quality in near shore wells worsens because it’s not going out to the river. This gives us an opportunity to look at cleanup progress in this area.



New testing begins

Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) contractor shut off the injection wells and halted digging to see if the groundwater that has come into the excavated area drops. If the water drops, excavation will potentially continue deeper into the aquifer. If it doesn’t, the plan is to take 40 soil samples from the saturated bottom of the excavated area to try to locate the highest source of contamination. The soil sampling study will help us better understand the high concentrations of hexavalent chromium in the aquifer and its soils. Hopefully we can determine if it is a persistent source or not and its future impacts on the current pump and treat system.

Overall, Ecology is pleased with the efforts of USDOE and its contractors to reduce the high concentrations of hexavalent chromium at Hanford. The work being done at the 100-D area is helping ensure that progress continues to protect the Columbia River from this toxic threat.


Note the proximity to the Columbia River, which helps to explain the influence river flow has on the groundwater here. The circle shows the excavation pit. Note the tiny white dot – the barrel of the previous picture.

The gray pads are the clean materials that came from the sides of the excavation. Chrome contaminated soil was packaged and moved to the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, a lined landfill in Central Hanford.

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2012 Hanford Public Involvement Survey results available online

By Dieter Bohrmann, Communications Manager, Nuclear Waste Program

>> See the survey results online or PDF format

Annually, the Tri-Party Agreement agencies (Washington State Department of Ecology, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Department of Energy) evaluate the effectiveness of our public involvement activities.

This year, 94 people responded to our survey. We appreciate your input and will look to make changes based on feedback. You can read survey results online or download a PDF.

If you have questions or comments about the survey or anything Hanford-related, please call the Hanford Cleanup Line at 800-321-2008 or email Hanford@ecy.wa.gov.

For more information about Hanford, see Ecology's Nuclear Waste Program. To get the latest news and events, follow @ecyhanford on Twitter and "like" Ecology's Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page.

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Learn about tank leaks at Hanford

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education, Nuclear Waste Program

The Department of Ecology knows the public and the news media want and deserve answers about the leaking tanks at Hanford, so we created Frequently Asked Questions: Leaking underground tanks at Hanford to answer some of the most common questions:

• How many tanks are leaking and when did they start?
• What is the threat to public health?
• What are the options for dealing with leaking tanks?
• How are the tanks monitored?
• Wasn't all the liquid pumped out of the SSTs years ago? If so, why are these tanks leaking again?
• What has been done to slow tank leaks?
• What has been done to keep water from intruding into the tanks and prevent contaminants from moving toward groundwater?
• How hard is it to get the waste out of tanks?
• If the waste is pumped out of the tanks, where will it go? Don't you need additional storage space? If so, how much time and money is it going to take to build new tanks?
• Is there any good news about Hanford tanks?
• Why didn't Ecology know about the leaks sooner?
• Will Ecology take enforcement actions if USDOE does not act soon?

In the right sidebar of this page, you can link to news stories about the leaks, the U.S. Department of Energy's proposed plan for pumping leaking double-shell tank AY-102, Ecology presentations and other resources on the subject, and Washington’s regulations for tank systems.

Ecology hopes you find the page useful and informative, and we welcome your input. Please submit other questions you would like to see answered by emailing hanford@ecy.wa.gov or calling 1-800-321-2008.

More Information

To learn more, view these Frequently Asked Questions:

• Leaking underground tanks at Hanford
• About Hanford

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College students crunch Hanford groundwater contaminant numbers

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education, Nuclear Waste Program


Over the last three months, Ecology's Nuclear Waste Program teamed up with statistics teacher Linda Rogers and her two classes at Columbia Basin College to analyze Hanford groundwater data. At Hanford, about 72 square miles of groundwater are contaminated above drinking water standards. One of Ecology’s top goals is to keep this contamination from reaching the Columbia River, an extremely important resource for the Northwest. To clean it up, we need consistent information about contaminant behavior to predict how contamination moves and make plans to intercept it.


Much of the groundwater contamination is the result of leaks or spills from Hanford’s 177 underground

storage tanks that hold a total of 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste. These tanks are organized into groups called tank farms, and Linda and her students’ work focuses on data from C Tank Farm in Hanford’s 200 East Area. Using groundwater sampling data spanning from the 1980s through today, we asked this group to establish movement trends for three groundwater contaminants beneath C Tank Farm: nitrate, sulfate, technetium-99.

The work of Linda and her students adds valuable input to Hanford cleanup and is a great service to our community. We plan to share their findings with the U.S. Department of Energy, their tank farm contractor, and the public. Stay tuned, as we’ll be posting more about this project as the reports are finalized …

For more photos of this project, please see our Columbia Basin College, Hanford Groundwater Statistics Project album on Ecology’s Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page. "Liking" this Facebook page is an easy way to keep up with Hanford news and events!

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Governor Inslee's statement on leaking tanks at Hanford

Hanford's B Tank Farm under construction during World War II. Two of the tanks reported to be leaking today are in this farm.

Gov. Inslee released the following statement:

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Washington Gov. Jay Inslee today that the U.S. Department of Energy has determined there are six, single-shell tanks leaking radioactive waste at Hanford. Last week, the governor was told about one of those tanks. There are a total of 177 tanks at the Hanford site, 149 of which are single-shell tanks.

"I met with Secretary Chu in Washington, D.C., this afternoon, and he told me that the Department of Energy has now confirmed there are six tanks leaking radioactive waste at Hanford.

"There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks, which are more than five miles from the Columbia River.

"But nonetheless this is disturbing news for all Washingtonians. One week ago, Secretary Chu told me there was one tank leaking. But he told me today that his department did not adequately analyze data it had that would have shown the other tanks that are leaking.

"This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford.

"I believe we need a new system for removing waste from these aging tanks, and was heartened to hear that the Department of Energy is looking at options for accelerating that process.

"Secretary Chu has a long-standing personal commitment to the clean-up of Hanford. He has assured me he will do all he can to address the issue of the leaking tanks. He also assured me there will be immediate additional monitoring of the single-wall tanks.

"The secretary and I agree that the state of Washington and the federal government must have a thorough and candid discussion about the need for additional storage tanks.

"Frankly, the state Department of Ecology is not convinced that current storage is adequate to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

"With potential sequestration and federal budget cuts looming, we need to be sure the federal government maintains its commitment and legal obligation to the cleanup of Hanford. To see Hanford workers furloughed at the exact moment we have additional leakers out there is completely unacceptable."

For more information about Hanford, see Ecology's Nuclear Waste Program. For updates on this issue, "like" Ecology's Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page.

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Leaking Hanford tank complicates cleanup plans

By Dieter Bohrmann, communications manager, Nuclear Waste Program

On October 22, the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) announced that video inspections confirmed a leak from the inner shell of a double-shell tank at Hanford. This was the first confirmed leak from one of Hanford’s 28 double-shell tanks, and the discovery threatens to further complicate plans for treating 56 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste from leaking and failing single-shell tanks at the site.

Prior to this discovery, the assumption was that Hanford’s double-shell tanks were sound. They were built in the late 1960s through the ‘80s to store waste from the 149 aging and leak-prone single-shell tanks. That waste is destined for the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), which is under construction but not scheduled to be operating until 2019 at the earliest. When operational, the WTP is designed to blend this waste with silica and turn it into glass, a process called vitrification. After the glass cools and solidifies, the waste is immobile and can no longer leak into soil and groundwater. This form allows for relatively safer long-term storage in specially designed facilities.

The double-shell tanks – which hold up to a million gallons each – remain critical to the retrieval and eventual treatment mission at Hanford. However, the determination of a leak will require USDOE and Ecology to take a harder look at the integrity of other double-shell tanks and weigh the options of what to do next. These options may include pumping waste from the leaking tank into other double-shell tanks or possibly recommending the construction of new double-shell tanks. Over the next few weeks, Ecology’s managers will be considering the practicability of possible actions as well as continuing discussions with USDOE before making recommendations on the path forward.

Fortunately, the leak is contained in the secondary shell and there is not an imminent threat of release of contamination to the environment. The leak consists of a slow ooze of sludge (think ketchup or peanut butter). However, this finding highlights the complexity and uncertainty of Hanford cleanup and is an important reminder that USDOE and its contractors must complete the Waste Treatment Plant and get it into service without further delays.

For more information and updates on the double-shell tank situation, please check out our new web page. There is also a link to this page under Spotlight on Ecology’s home page. Click on “Hanford tank leak.”

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Enviro ed journal features Ecology’s Hanford outreach efforts

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education, Nuclear Waste Program

Late last year, the environmental education journal Clearing put out a call for articles for their annual compendium issue. With the majority of readers in, and content focused on, the Pacific Northwest, I figured it would be a great opportunity to share ways teachers can bring Hanford into their lessons.

The article covers some of the service-learning projects we’ve done with college students, and shorter classroom activities we’ve done with younger students. In addition, it has sections overviewing Hanford history, the cleanup effort, and Hanford-related classroom resources.

To read “Hands-on Hanford: Linking lessons to the world’s largest environmental cleanup” in the Clearing Compendium, skip to page 24 after opening it online.

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Ecology Ponders Hanford Tank Farm Closure

By Jeff Lyon, Nuclear Waste Program
I have some questions as Ecology’s Tank Systems, Operations, and Closure Project Manager:

• How long should we wait to close the 149 single-shell tanks (SSTs) at Hanford?
• What are the risks to humans and the environment if we wait?
• If we wait for more money or better cleanup technologies (we may never get either), what should we do about the current soil contamination?
• What will it take to make our decision more certain?

The Draft Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement (TC & WM EIS) shows that early soil cleanup will help reduce groundwater impacts. About 72 square miles of groundwater under Hanford are contaminated above drinking water standards now. But even if we start today, it will take time to see benefits to groundwater from soil cleanup. But as we wait for action, the conditions worsen.
Part of the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) is to prioritize Hanford cleanup, and the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) schedules that work. One of the TPA milestones is to close all SSTs by 2043. The first of seven waste management areas (WMAs), WMA-C, is scheduled to close by 2019. The schedule requires the remaining six WMAs to be finished in the following 24 years (about one every 4 years). We still have a very long way to go, which makes a good case for finishing WMA-C as soon as we can.
I’m reminded of my high school shop teacher’s motto: You’re not done with your work until you clean up your mess.

All I need to know I learned in shop class

I came onto the tank farms project when USDOE was still performing interim stabilization of SSTs. Interim stabilization meant pumping out all the liquids to stop potential leaks, and that work is mostly done. However, dangerous chemical and radioactive sludge and solids still remain in the tanks.

Hanford tank farm workers use Geiger counters to measure radiation.

As a result of past interim stabilization efforts, hose-in-hose transfer lines were abandoned in many of the tank farms. They were all flushed with fresh water but unusable. They were past their service life, in the way of retrieval work, and had created tripping hazards.
Then, while retrieving waste from a tank, a gasket in a hose-in-hose transfer line failed, which led to an investigation and enforcement actions. After this, the agencies realized that leaving the lines lying around was not good housekeeping, deciding they must all be removed and properly disposed.
At about the same time, the double-shell tank upgrades were moving forward. When contractors opened old valve boxes, again hoses from transfers performed decades ago remained. Upgrades were more difficult because of the mess left behind.
With those experiences in mind, I don’t want to leave an important step in tank closure half done. We need to finish WMA-C.
We have done a lot of important work, including soil studies and closure planning. But work slowdowns and budget cuts continue to worry me. The TC & WM EIS confirms that the contamination is serious and that the groundwater problems we already face will worsen the longer we wait.
So our advice to USDOE includes my shop teacher’s motto:

Don’t wait! Meet the scheduled deadlines for closing WMA-C. You’re not done until you finish cleaning up!

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Washington, Oregon hook up on Hanford presentations at Oregon State

By Dieter Bohrmann, Communications Consultant, Nuclear Waste Program

John Price and I ventured down to Oregon State University (OSU) on February 23 to talk about Hanford with students and faculty, as well as other Corvallis residents. We were joined on the visit by Ken Niles from the Oregon Department of Energy, and Max Power, chair of the Oregon Hanford Cleanup Board.

Our first presentation was with students in OSU’s Master’s in Public Policy program. Hanford has many policy issues to consider, such as budget decisions, risk issues, tribal obligations, and natural resource damage assessments. For many of the students, this was their first introduction to Hanford, and they had a lot of good questions.

Ecology's John Price talks about Hanford.

Our second presentation was sponsored by the university’s Student Sustainability Initiative. The evening event drew about 50 people to Gilfillan Auditorium on campus. We had a good mix of Hanford newcomers and others who obviously knew something about the history and the cleanup efforts.

Overall, people appreciated the opportunity to talk about Hanford issues and get the perspectives of both states involved in the cleanup. The groups also enjoyed the animated video, What’s in Hanford’s Backyard, that was shown during both presentations. The video was created by students at Washington State University Tri-Cities through a project created by Ecology. One student also blogged about our visit.

Corvallis hasn’t traditionally been visited frequently by the agencies involved in Hanford cleanup. But there was genuine interest from both students and residents in what’s happening at the Site, and it’s a relationship we believe we can build on.

For more photos from Ecology's visit to OSU, see the album on our Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page.

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The House that Fermi Built

by Tim Hill, Office of the Columbia River

History and place have always been a passion of mine. I’ve spent a good part of life trudging through brush and fields to find where Peo-peo-mox-mox was brutally killed or where Ranald MacDonald settled down after being freed from a Japanese prison.

I search out these places to feel what I call an “historical moment.” It’s hard to describe what that is exactly other than to say it’s an intense feeling of a sense of history. It’s as if the ghosts of those who once inhabited the site gather around me to share their joys, their fears, and their stories.

Sometimes, the historical moment feels so strong, I am overcome with emotion. The first time that happened was at Dover Green. I hadn’t really sought out that site—I was just killing time while my wife was interviewing for a job with the Delaware Department of Education. All of a sudden, I visualized farmers, storekeepers, millers, and tavern keeps, mustering as minutemen. I could feel their fear, their anger, and their yearning for self-determination. It shook me.

It happened again when I stood in the basement of the U.S. Supreme Court looking at the Brown v. the Board of Education decision. That document demonstrated that the system could work, that government can be a great force for good, that even the most evil, institutionalized injustices could be righted. It demonstrated that Langston Hughes’s America, the one that never was, could be the America of which he dreamed.

B Reactor

The last place I was overwhelmed by an historical moment was at B Reactor on the Hanford Site near Richland. As I entered the control room, I visualized Enrico Fermi hunched over blueprints at the small table in the back, creating something that had never been done at such a scale before. B Reactor is truly a monument to American ingenuity and what is often called the “can-do” spirit. In a few short months, the “greatest generation” turned a remote piece of shrub-steppe into the site of one of the greatest technological accomplishments of all time.

But as I entered into where the reactor is housed, I was reminded that B Reactor is also a monument to one of the greatest horrors of all time. The plutonium that was used in “Fat Man,” the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, was produced here. I thought about the more than 73,000 people who were killed by the bomb blast and the thousands more resulting deaths over subsequent decades. Opinions about the bombing of Nagasaki range from “horrible but necessary” to “horrible and shameful,” but no matter what one thinks about it, horror is part of the equation. A small part of that horror sliced through me as I stood there contemplating the victims.

Hanford’s Environmental Legacy

Later, as we visited the huge plutonium processing facilities, I thought about the piece of Hanford’s legacy we are dealing with today. About 56 million gallons of highly toxic,chemical and radioactive waste remains in aging underground tanks there, and the massive $12 billion facility being built to treat this waste is still years away from completion. Meanwhile. tritium, strontium-90, and technetium-99 plumes mix with the groundwater, threatening the health of the Columbia River.

Thankfully, the old B Reactor ingenuity and can-do spirit is being put to work on the environmental cleanup. It’s hard work and will take decades to complete, but with adequate funding from the federal government and continued vigorous oversight by EPA and Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program, it will get done. Maybe someday, my great-grandchildren will have an historical moment while strolling down a Hanford greenway trail.

Another round of Hanford Site tours is set to begin in April. Registration starts at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, March 6. Historically, slots for these tours fill up within minutes, so you’ll want to be ready to register at the moment the registration site opens.

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WSU students create a buzz about Hanford among Tri-City youth

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education Specialist, Nuclear Waste Program

Working with an English instructor at the Tri-Cities branch of Washington State University (WSU), we tasked his 48 technical communication students with the goal of reaching high school and college students about the Hanford nuclear site cleanup. Usually when students are given more control over the direction of a project, their interest level increases as does the creativity of their solutions. These students didn’t disappoint, single-handedly informing over 600 young Tri-Citians about Hanford.

A Tri-Cities Prep senior wins a WSU frisbee for a correct answer.

Four of the eight groups chose to present Hanford information in history and science classes at four local high schools. In all, they presented to 14 classes, playing Jeopardy-style games and giving away informative handouts, vitrified marbles simulating glassified waste from Hanford tanks, and WSU and Ecology promotional items.

Another group took a risk by holding a public presentation about the various roles of Hanford contractors and the types of people they employ. Knowing the success of their project depended upon attendance at their event, they offered free pizza afterward and extra credit for Hanford High students who stayed throughout. Their sign-in sheet, which was only available to attendees as they exited, had 51 names on it.

Noor Ullah presents HanfordLearning.com to his classmates.

The remaining three groups sought to reach young minds through the Internet. HanfordLearning.org includes historical and cleanup information with quizzes to test users’ comprehension, video interviews with Tri-Party Agency representatives, and resources for teachers and others interested in learning more about Hanford. This group’s phenomenal work also creates an opportunity for other students to maintain and grow this website.

The B Reactor Hanford Facebook group scored when the reactor’s former historical researcher joined and started posting trivia questions. They deserved the boost based on all they did to bring their membership to 84 people. It took six months to get our Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page to 70 people. Because of this group linking to us, we’re now up to 101! This dedicated team talked to friends, visited the CREHST Museum and shot informative videos to upload, walked Richland’s streets with signs advertising gift card raffles for people joining their group and “liking” our page, and impressed the B Reactor staff. The icing on the cake: 23 lucky Facebook group members were offered a special tour of the B Reactor.

The last group created the original, animated video What’s In Hanford’s Backyard?, overviewing Hanford history and cleanup and focusing on why it matters to young people. Their process included researching the issues, writing a detailed script including the narrator’s lines and the accompanying drawings, recording the voice-over, drawing the animations, and finally editing it all into one fabulous movie.

Next step: Going viral.

These students have far exceeded the course goals and our expectations, navigating difficult rhetorical situations in writing and in real-time and communicating about extremely technical subjects while making them understandable to their audience. They’ve become more skilled at collaboration, document design, public speaking, project management, and plain ol’ problem solving. And, did I mention that they reached over 600 other students in less than a month?!

For more photos of the project, see the album on our Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page.

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Brazilian nuclear experts get well-rounded education in Richland

By Dieter Bohrmann, Communications Consultant, Nuclear Waste Program

A group of five nuclear experts from Brazil had a lot of serious questions when they visited Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program in Richland last month. One less serious – but no less important – question was: “How is the quality of your wine?”

A team of high-ranking officials in the Brazilian government’s nuclear energy sector traveled to the U.S. in August to learn how our country’s nuclear regulations and oversight system works, explore best practices for improving public perceptions of nuclear issues, and experience American culture and society. For some of them, it was their first trip to the U.S.

The team spent nearly three weeks talking with various groups in Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and Nevada, in addition to their swing through the Pacific Northwest. The tour was part of the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

In Washington, the group was particularly interested in the state’s role in overseeing and regulating the byproducts of nuclear programs to ensure community health and safety. The group was also interested in understanding the purpose of the Northwest Interstate Compact, and how it provides a regional framework for securing nuclear materials. The compact oversees the management and disposal of commercial low-level waste within its region that includes eight Western states.

The Nuclear Waste Program got involved when the World Affairs Council in Seattle contacted Ecology’s headquarters office in Lacey to request a meeting with the Richland office. But it quickly became apparent that the scope of the group’s interests went beyond our program’s expertise. So reinforcements — in the form of our partners at the Department of Health and the Energy Facilities Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) — were called in to provide all the information the experts were seeking.

Pictured from left to right: Guilherme Carmargo (Superintendent of Quality Management, Eletronuclear); Paulo Viegas (Legislative Advisor in Economics & Energy, Federal Senate); Wagner Tavares (Legislative Counsel, Federal Chamber of Deputies); Leonam Guimares (Special Assistant to the CEO, Eletronuclear); Marcelo Suano (Advisor to the Presidency, Federal House of Representatives)

The multi-agency effort proved to be effective in covering a lot of ground. Ron Skinnarland went over the Nuclear Waste Program’s role in regulating environmental cleanup at Hanford. Ecology’s Mike Garner provided an overview of commercial low-level radioactive waste laws and interstate compacts. Earl Fordham, Mike Priddy, and Tom Rogers from Health’s Office of Radiation Protection discussed radiation monitoring and emergency preparedness at the Columbia Generating Station, the state’s only operating nuclear power plant. And Stephen Posner from EFSEC came to the rescue to talk about the state’s role in licensing and siting energy facilities, including the nuclear plant.

The meeting was a great opportunity for the agencies to be ambassadors for our work in protecting Washington’s environment. We were also left with an appreciation for the regulatory structure that ensures those protections are effective and efficient. Something that’s easy to take for granted.

Wrapping up with us on a Friday afternoon after a busy week of meetings and a long East Coast flight, our visitors were looking forward to a chance to relax and play tourist over the weekend. I hope they got a chance to sample some of the highest quality wine in the world made right here in the Columbia Basin.

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Ready, set… RODEO!

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education Specialist, Nuclear Waste Program

We’re prepped and psyched to hit the Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo with some new activities for passersby. Come one, come all: kids; Hanford workers, neophytes, and haters alike; visitors from out of town. We want to talk to everyone.

This year, our booth really is “more than an 8-second ride”! Explore the bottom of the Columbia River with our critters’ aquarium, test your Hanford knowledge by playing games, and connect with our social media tools and public mailing lists on the spot on our new touch-screen kiosk.

Our Hanford groundwater model is sitting this one out, awaiting its next showing. Teachers, school is starting soon, and we’re looking to book classroom visits. Don’t let the model get dusty! Come see us and schedule your class.

If you can’t make it, find us online anytime with Ecology’s Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page, our ECOconnect blog, and website.

We hope to see you at the fair or in cyberspace!

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Old Hanford misconceptions come home to roost again

By Suzanne Dahl, Tank Waste Treatment manager, Nuclear Waste Program

Nothing is as frustrating as watching history repeat itself negatively.

A July 10th Tri-City Herald article highlighted the findings from a recent federal advisory board’s report on tank waste treatment. The report recommends delaying a decision about additional low-activity waste treatment for another 3 to 5 years. Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant, or Vit Plant, currently under construction may vitrify as little as one-third of Hanford’s low-activity waste, leaving a substantial gap in the plan to safely treat all 56 million gallons of waste.

This recommendation is a 180-degree switch from the recently negotiated, legally binding agreement setting the schedule for cleanup that was agreed to by U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE), EPA and Ecology. It reminds us of two recurring misconceptions in Hanford cleanup logic: “Everything at Hanford can be solved by delaying it to a future funding cycle” and “There is always a magical technology awaiting us in the future.”

Assumptions like these have led to a 20-year delay in starting the Waste Treatment Plant. This, in turn, caused the projected end of treatment to slip from 2028 to 2047. Further delays are probably inevitable if USDOE puts off making critical decisions. For Ecology, the path is clear: A second Low-Activity Waste Vitrification Facility is needed.

If USDOE cannot fully test another treatment method by 2015, then the default is to build another vitrification facility. Limited time remains to research other technologies given the current schedule. And we do not feel confident that delaying the decision 3 to 5 years will allow us to reach our mutually agreed endpoint.

If the Waste Treatment Plant starts without a plan for treating the additional low-activity waste, our current information indicates that the High-Level Waste Vitrification Facility cannot run at full capacity. In that scenario, we will not meet the 2047 deadline for treating all of Hanford’s tank waste.

We agree with the federal advisory board’s recommendation to start the current Low-Activity Waste Facility early. The lessons learned from this process would inform startup of the rest of the Waste Treatment Plant. However, technical issues in this plan also need resolution.

More information:

• “Supplemental waste treatment solution clear as glass,” Tank Waste Treatment News, June 2011
• Environmental Management Advisory Board’s Hanford Tank Waste Review (full report)
• “Delay proposed in work to treat Hanford waste,” Tri-City Herald, June 10, 2011

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Nuke waste program experiment may improve state soil sampling standards

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education Specialist, Nuclear Waste Program

Last week, we completed an exciting service-learning project with statistics students at Columbia Basin College. They helped Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program do statistical analysis on soil contamination data from Hanford’s 200 Area. Our goal was to see if new multi-increment soil sampling produces similar results to the current discrete sampling methods used statewide: systematic and judgmental.

This was a big step forward in a process that began three years ago.

In 2008, with the U.S. Department of Energy, our program initiated an effort to test multi-increment sampling, a process adopted by state agencies in Alaska and Hawaii. This proposed change to Washington state soil sampling standards would save time and money and potentially improve soil sample quality.

With systematic and multi-increment sampling, a contaminated site is divided into a grid composed of 30-50 units, and a sample is collected from each. Each systematic sample is then analyzed separately, which is costly due to the high number of samples and the time it takes to process that volume of data. Judgmental sample locations are chosen using radiochemical detection equipment and professional judgment, and are also processed individually.

But multi-increment samples are combined into one composite sample and analyzed. With this method, a larger soil sample can be extracted for analysis at a lower cost than it would take to cover the site with discrete samples.

The proof is in the dirtBut do the three methods produce similar results? Volunteer CBC classroom aide, tutor, and statistician-in-training, Kelly Rogers, compared the contaminant levels detected with all three sampling methods. The results below are from her full report.

Out of 44 comparisons of mean contaminant levels, results showed a high correlation between the multi-increment samples and the large number of systematic samples taken. The judgmental samples either overestimated or underestimated the average contamination level, depending on the contaminant. Nitrate contamination is a good example of judgmental sampling underestimating average contamination levels.

When field workers first sampled this dried waste discharge pond, they assumed most of the chemical contamination would be near the radiological contamination, which held true for heavy metals. But nitrates appear to have moved down through the soil, separating from the other major concentrations of contaminants.

Here is a quick summary of the results:

• Few differences were found between systematic and multi-increment samples, which supports changing state soil sampling standards.
• Judgmental sampling leaves the possibility of not taking enough samples and taking them in the wrong places.

Now what?We consider this dried pond sample site homogenous because the contamination was fairly evenly spread throughout. Our next step will be to repeat the process, taking samples from a heterogeneous site with many “hot spots,” or areas of concentrated contamination next to areas with little to no contamination.

Washington suspended most rule-making processes last year due to budget cuts. This pushed back the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) revision until 2012. MTCA is a state law guiding the cleanup of environmental contamination. This delay actually gives us a chance to further study multi-increment soil sampling, get others in the agency on board, and possibly revise the state standards in MTCA.

More information:

• Sampling and Analysis Plan for the Washington State Department of Ecology Comparison of Discrete and Multi-Incremental Sampling for Site Characterization and Cleanup
• Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Draft Guidance on Multi Increment Soil Sampling
• Hawaii State Contingency Plan, Section 4.2, Multi-Increment Sample Collection

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CBC stats students shed light on new soil sampling method

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education Specialist, Nuclear Waste Program

Early in 2011, I emailed just about every college instructor in the Tri-Cities area who taught a class that might be remotely related to Hanford. One of the replies came from Linda Rogers, a statistics teacher at Columbia Basin College in Pasco. She had two statistics classes in the spring and very much wanted to work with us. The feeling was mutual.

The preparation

Having focused on visual art and English in college, I needed help designing a Hanford-related statistics project. Ecology chemist Jerry Yokel answered my call. He had stacks and stacks of soil sample data fresh from a professional laboratory. The data needed to be compiled into a spreadsheet and analyzed.

Linda and her daughter Kelly Rogers, a student at CBC and an aspiring cryptographer (cracking codes using math) or professional statistician, spent hours entering all the data into spreadsheets and then compared their numbers to ensure accuracy.

The project

The data reflected soil contamination levels in a dried waste discharge pond in the 200 Area at Hanford. Those levels guide cleanup decisions, and the contaminated soil was removed in August 2010.

However, this soil sampling process also tested something else: a new method of sample collection. Ecology currently uses a systematic sampling process, in which the goal is to collect and analyze approximately 40 soil samples throughout a contaminated area. This process is time consuming and costly.

To improve efficiency, we are trying a new multi-incremental sampling (MIS) process. MIS involves taking 100 evenly spaced scoops of soil in a given area. These scoops are then combined, and a single sample is taken from this mixture to represent the entire area. The composite sample is then extracted and analyzed for contaminant levels. This scooping, combining and analyzing process is repeated five times. If it can be proved that MIS produces results comparable to systematic sampling, the MIS process could improve state standards for soil sample collection and analysis.

CBC students, along with Linda and Kelly, compared the results of both sampling processes and created graphic displays of their findings. The class focused on the project all quarter, so instead of cranking out book assignments, the students addressed the course learning goals by applying them to the data we provided. This process gave them real-world experience using statistics while also practicing teamwork and project management. And because each student wrote a 30- to 40-page report worth 40% of their grade, they also practiced technical writing by explaining and analyzing the graphs and charts they produced.

The “personal” results (technical findings coming soon)

Yesterday, I met with Linda, Kelly and Jerry. Linda gave us the top five student reports, and we’d all like to recognize the excellent work done by Sarah Pedersen, Lorena Perkins, Angela Shaw, Eileen Sheppard, and Kristen Smith (click the author’s name to see her report).

About the project, Angela said, “I am so proud of the completed project and it feels fantastic to have all of my hard work noticed. … I really appreciate the opportunity you gave me and I feel honored to be a part of this project!”

During Jerry’s and my last visit to the class, Kristen described the synergistic effect of being in a history class at the same time. “In that class, we covered the wars and such, but we also took a field trip to the CREHST Museum in Richland. … Working with the data you provided our stats class, I was able to understand most of what was being said during that tour. … I was impressed that, even though this class was very time consuming and I may have had to put more effort in this term, I was able to relate two of the three classes I took this quarter, which made things a lot easier and gave me motivation to keep going.”

Though Linda had to choose the top five reports, the effort that many of the other students put in is no small feat. The project was challenging, but many found the experience rewarding and useful for their future. Two of the students used their reports as part of their nursing program entrance portfolio; others have included the reports in writing portfolios to apply for admission to four-year universities like Washington State and Eastern Washington.

In an email to Linda, who was formerly a professional statistician with the U.S. Department of Defense, student Martin Lopéz said, “Thanks for everything you have done for me and the class. … It was a great journey with a great reward. I never felt so accomplished about anything like this before, it is a great feeling, but it was not possible without your critique for improvement. Thank you so much for a great class!”

Stay tuned...

I’ll be reporting on the results soon. Meanwhile, visit our Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page to see pictures from the project and CBC’s news release. If you have questions or feedback about the project, please comment below.

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Hanford drill tests emergency preparedness teams

By Dieter Bohrmann, Communications Consultant, Nuclear Waste Program

Environmental cleanup at the Hanford nuclear site is complex and potentially hazardous. The U.S. Department of Energy as well as numerous state and local agencies have a stake in ensuring the work is done safely and protectively. A large accident at Hanford could threaten the health of not only workers, but potentially local and regional residents, the environment and even the economy.
On June 16, Hanford’s annual multi-agency emergency drill gave first responders another chance to test their readiness for an incident at the site. The players included the state Emergency Management Division, the Department of Health, Ecology, Benton, Franklin, and Grant counties and the state of Oregon.

This year’s scenario involved a fuel truck that crashed at the Plutonium Finishing Plant. An ensuing fire destroyed 12 drums full of radioactive waste causing a release to the environment and sending much of the site into “take cover” mode.

The basement of the federal building in Richland buzzed with activity as officials monitored the event and collected information from the field. Just down the hall in the Joint Information Center (JIC), public information officers hustled to sort out truth from rumor and issue timely and accurate press releases. An early report of possible gunshots at the accident site led to rumors that the incident may have been intentional. The “popping sounds” thought to be gunshots turned out to be waste drums being breached by the fire.

In this scenario, Ecology’s first step would be making sure staff was accounted for and alerting management in Lacey. Our regulatory role would likely come later, as we assessed the release of waste to the ground or water and worked with the Department of Energy on cleanup plans.

At the debrief session after the exercise, most participants were positive about how it went. Oregon’s public information officer commented that a couple of hours into the drill he felt like it was the real thing. I think others felt the same.

It’s impossible to plan for all incidents, but these exercises are an excellent chance to bring multiple agencies together to see what works and where improvements are needed. While the chances of a major incident at Hanford are remote, it’s important that Ecology and other response teams – while hoping for the best – stay prepared for the worst.

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Planets In the Playground

By Nancy Uziemblo, Geologist, Nuclear Waste Program

We talk about Hanford cleanup and actively promote care of the Earth… Why not extend it to the solar system? When asked to share a geology lesson, sometimes I get carried away and think big. So when Sangetta Goswami (wife of Dib Goswami, Hydrogeologist with the Nuclear Waste Program) requested my annual geology lesson for the 3rd graders at Southgate Elementary School, I said, "Sure!" This time we would study our solar system, how big it is, and how we fit in.

In the classroom, I showed recent pictures of the sun, planets and moons from the NASA website. The students were each assigned a planetary body and came ready to share a fact that they gathered about it. This research prepared them to go to the playground and act like the sun, planets, dwarf planet, planets’ rings and many moons in our solar system. If one student was Europa, she would be rotating around Jupiter. A few students twirled about Saturn as one of its many rings. Uranus would be poised tilted, and Mercury would be small and hot when he was facing the sun.

Outside we stretched a 100-foot rope marked with the relative locations of the sun, planets and Pluto and became the solar system! The students ran to their spots and acted large or small, hot or cold. The inner planets and their moons realized how crammed they were being so close to the sun. Pluto and its moons were a bit lonely at the end of the rope and waved to their nearest neighbor, Neptune. Uranus realized it was hard to lean sideways.

We learned how big our solar system is and that there are large planets, hot planets, tiny planets and far away planets. The students know that we are not alone in our solar system, and I think they will now extend that care to our planetary objects near and far.

For more information about Ecology in the classroom or to schedule a presentation, please contact Erika Holmes, 509-372-7880. Keep tabs on Hanford with our Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page and email list.

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Securing Hanford’s Future in the Classroom

By Erika Bronson, Community Outreach & Environmental Education Specialist, Nuclear Waste Program

A few weeks ago, I received letters from 50 fifth graders at James McGee Elementary in Pasco. They’d been studying ecosystems, conservation and pollution, and they wanted answers about Hanford. Why is Hanford so contaminated? What is a Vit Plant? How can radiation be captured in glass?

So, on June 1st, I visited the classrooms of two teachers: Mrs. Palomarez and Mrs. Kopf. First, their students wowed me with what they’d learned about ecosystems and pollution. Too much fertilizer on lawns and crops can speed up algae growth in surface waters. Removing a species from an ecosystem impacts other life in that system. Only rain should go in the storm drain, and so on.

Then, I showed them a slideshow on the Columbia River watershed and Hanford history and cleanup. We finished our session playing Ecology’s card game matching descriptions of animals on the Hanford Site to their pictures, trying out Hanford groundwater cleanup methods on Ecology’s model, and playing Bechtel’s WTP 2020 educational video game about the Vit Plant (also known as the Waste Treatment Plant).

Continuing the conversationOne student commented that he couldn’t believe all he had to do was write a letter to get someone from Hanford to come to his class. Surprised by the power of his own words, he sincerely appreciated that someone heard his voice and took action. Some students asked if they could continue to write to me over the summer and have their parents drop off their letters on the way to work. Why not?

The Hanford community often feels like an echo chamber in which all the same voices are heard. Though a diverse chorus, we’re always hoping to get more people in on the conversation. The genuine interest these kids showed in Hanford and the health of our environment demonstrated to me that youth can engage, and intelligently at that.

Some DO stay engagedAs I was writing this, I checked Ecology’s Hanford Education & Outreach Facebook page and discovered 5 new “likes,” two of which were University of Washington students whom I met through service-learning projects. Both promoted a public meeting to fellow students and one went on to write a glossary of terms related to Hanford’s underground tank waste (I’ll be posting it soon).

Some question the ongoing benefits of educational outreach and service learning, claiming it’s a waste of time and money. But Hanford cleanup needs funding for at least another 41 years, and we need informed people to continue working on and caring about it until then and beyond. Educating today’s youth prepares them to be tomorrow’s leaders (McGee fifth graders, that means you!).

For more pictures of my visit to McGee, see our Facebook page.

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