The US Department of Energy has recently awarded the Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure, or H2C, a 10-year-long contract worth $45 billion to treat radioactive waste at the Hanford Site. This site, located in the state of Washington, was used from World War II through the Cold War for the production of two-thirds of the plutonium for the country’s nuclear weapons program, resulting in 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste being stored in underground tanks, with millions of gallons hazardous liquids having already seeped into the soil during the nuclear program.
While groundwater treatment systems were already installed to mitigate the issue, H2C is now tasked with the retrieval of these tanks and the construction of waste facilities, turning much of the remaining hazardous waste into glass for permanent disposal. Environmental health and safety will be paramount principles of H2C activities, as the Hanford Site partially feeds into the Columbia River, whose basin provides water for crops and multiple communities.
