Preparing Hanford's K East Basin for Demolition
Built in the 1940's, the K Basins were never designed for long-term storage of nuclear fuel. With roughly one million gallons of highly contaminated water still inside, there's potential for leaks into the groundwater. So to prevent a human health disaster, Fluor Hanford is preparing for D and D...Dewatering and Demolition.
"We're preparing to remove the water from the basin and backfill it with a sand material which will prepare it for the next phase of demolition, which is the superstructure," says Chris Lucas, K East Basin Closure Director. Everything you see around me."
Workers used "pull tools" ranging from 10 to 24 feet in length to vacuum up radioactive sludge and debris. The tools were then inserted into slots only one-and-a-half inches wide.
Hanford operators needed to see what was underneath the murky water. They tested dozens of camera systems, but what eventually hooked them was a fish camera.
"All the video that we've taken underwater and the hundreds and thousands of hours of underwater work, we used using a simple, very inexpensive camera that every fisherman might use while their out fishing on the Columbia River," adds Jeffrey Broussard, K East Basin Facility Manager."
And with the K Basin removed, (Department of Energy) DOE can focus on the Columbia River.
"We're very excited about that because once we get that down, we can get to the soil and that's where we want to remediate," says Ellen Dagan, DOE Project Manager.
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