RICHLAND, Wash. – In 2015, employees at the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, made excellent progress on construction of the plant, intended to treat the radioactive liquid waste at the Hanford Site.
Workers completed the important 30 percent design milestone of the capability to send tank waste directly to the Low-Activity Waste Vitrification Facility, or LAW. The 30 percent design review for the capability is an important step toward initial construction.
At the LAW Facility, workers completed placement of refractory, or insulating material, in the two 300-ton waste glass melters. Low-activity waste mixed with glass-forming materials will be heated to 2,100 degrees F in the melters, poured into containers, cooled and transported for disposal on the Hanford Site once the LAW Facility is operational.
Work also neared completion on the Thermal Catalytic Oxidizer, a major component in the LAW Facility off-gas treatment system. Once completed, the TCO will undergo testing at the fabricator’s facility before installation.
Construction focus at the Analytical Laboratory, another of the Vit Plant’s four major facilities, has moved toward outfitting the laboratory with equipment and fixtures before turning the facility over to the startup group, which will ensure all systems are working properly.
Construction was also completed on several of the plant’s infrastructure systems. All major systems in two electrical switchgear facilities and a non-radioactive liquid waste disposal facility were transferred from the Vit Plant construction group to the startup group.
At the High-Level Waste Vitrification Facility, workers completed 22 concrete placements for walls and floors in the nearly 600,000-square-foot facility.
The Vit Plant continues to be one of the safest places to work in the Department of Energy (DOE) complex. In 2015, the Vit Plant received DOE’s highest award for safety, the Voluntary Protection Program Star of Excellence. Last year was the safest year in the project’s 15-year history.
In a letter thanking employees for their work in 2015, Bechtel’s Project Director for the Vit Plant Peggy McCullough said, “These accomplishments can only occur because all Vit Plant employees are focused on the same goal: building a plant that will safely and efficiently treat the millions of gallons of waste in the tanks.”