Hanford Site
Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first nuclear bomb, tested at the Trinity site, and in Fat Man, the third bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. In 2007, the Hanford site represented 60% of high-level radioactive waste by volume managed by the US Department of Energy. On November 10, 2015, it was designated aspart of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.
About Hanford Site in brief
Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project in Hanford, south-central Washington. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first nuclear bomb, tested at the Trinity site, and in Fat Man, the third bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. In 2007, the Hanford site represented 60% of high-level radioactive waste by volume managed by the US Department of Energy and 7–9% of all nuclear waste in the United States. Hanford also hosts a commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, and various centers for scientific research and development. On November 10, 2015, it was designated aspart of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park alongside other sites in Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. The Hanford Site occupies 586 square miles —roughly equivalent to half of the total area of Rhode Island—within Benton County, Washington. It is a desert environment receiving under 10 inches of annual precipitation, covered mostly by shrub-steppe vegetation. The Columbia River flows along the site for 50 miles, forming its boundary with Grant and Franklin counties. Some of this land has been returned to private use and is now covered with vineyards, vineyards and irrigated fields. The nuclear reactors were located along the river in an area designated as the Central Plateau. In 2000, large portions of the site were turned over to the National Monument. The site is divided into three main areas by function by function: the nuclear reactors, the chemical separations complexes; and various support facilities located in the southeast, southeast, and northwest corners of the area.
In 2011, the federal agency charged with overseeing the site, “interim stabilized” 149 single-shell tanks by pumping nearly all of the liquid waste out into 28 newer double- shell tanks. In March 2014, the DOE announced further delays in the construction of the Waste Treatment Plant, which will affect the schedule for removing waste from the tanks. In 2012, DOE discovered a leak also from a double-shell tank caused by construction flaws and corrosion in the bottom, and that 12 double-Shell tanks have similar construction flaws. In 2013, DOE found water intruding into at least 14 single-Shell Tanks and that one of them had been leaking about 640 US gallons per year into the ground since about 2010. In 2014, DOE changed to monitoring single- Shell tanks monthly and double- Shell Tanks every three years, and also changed monitoring methods. In 2015, DOE announced that it would be monitoring single Shell Tanks monthly, and double Shell Tanks once a year, and triple Shell Tanks twice a year. In 2016, DOE said it would monitor single Shell tanks once a month, and once a week, and three times a week. In 2017, DOE will monitor single shell tanks monthly, once every two months, and twice a month. In 2018, DOE plans to change the monitoring methods to once every three months. In 2019, the site will change to monthly and once every four months.
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This page is based on the article Hanford Site published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
