CH2M HILL
Solutions Without Boundaries
CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. is the Department of Energy Office of River Protection prime contractor responsible for safely retrieving approximately 53 million gallons of highly radioactive and hazardous waste stored in 177 underground tanks. The waste is stored in 149 older single-shell tanks and 28 newer double-shell tanks that are grouped in 18 farms at the 560-square-mile Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. The tank contents include materials from years of World-War-II and post-war weapons production, which account for 60 percent by volume of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste. These aging and deteriorating tanks are just a few miles from the Columbia River and within a 50-mile radius of more than 200,000 residents.
Our overall mission is to empty the tanks, and we are accomplishing this mission in two ways. One, we are upgrading tank-farm facilities in preparation for waste feed to and from the Waste Treatment Plant. Two, we are developing and implementing supplemental technologies that can be used to treat the remaining low-activity waste.