RICHLAND, Wash. – Scott Sax had a simple goal for his company in the final months of the River Corridor Closure Project at the Hanford Site.

   “Finish strong and finish with pride,” the president of Washington Closure Hanford (WCH), EM’s Richland Operations Office’s contractor, repeatedly told his team. 

   And that’s exactly what WCH has accomplished with the $3 billion River Corridor Closure contract after 11 years. Nowhere is it more evident than at the 618-10 Burial Ground.  

   Cleanup of the burial ground includes remediating 94 buried vertical pipes units (VPU) that contain radioactive and chemical waste. The VPUs were constructed of 55-gallon drums welded together end to end, corrugated pipes or solid steel pipes, all buried vertically. Some of the waste disposed in the VPUs was packaged in a variety of containers ranging in size from juice cans to paint buckets. 

   To remediate the VPUs, WCH used an auger to grind up the waste, piping material and soil within a steel overcasing, which allows the waste to be safely retrieved, treated and shipped to the site’s Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (ERDF) for permanent disposal. 

   EM originally requested WCH to auger 28 of the VPUs and retrieve waste from 15 of them. Before transitioning its remaining work scope at the burial ground this month to CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) — EM’s Plateau Remediation contractor — WCH finished augering 80 VPUs and retrieved waste from 33 of them. CHPRC will remediate the remaining 14 VPUs, which are made of thick-walled steel, and dig up the remaining waste from the VPUs augered by WCH.

   “It was like a hot knife through butter,” said Mark French, the EM project director for the River Corridor, said of WCH’s work. “It could not have gone any better.”

   French said the augering process allows the VPUs to be broken open and their contents to react with the surrounding soils and moisture below grade, protecting the workers, environment and public.

   “It potentially saved millions of dollars by stabilizing the waste as it was being augered, reducing extra steps that would have been required,” he said.

   WCH began digging up the augered waste this spring using a clamshell shovel lowered into the overcasing to bring up the waste and soil mixture. Workers deposited the mixture in a steel box, where it was mixed with grout for disposal at ERDF.

   The team has been remediating the burial ground’s waste trenches, removing about 1,900 of an estimated 2,000 drums, some of which are concrete-lined and contain high-dose-rate items. In addition, about 350,000 tons of waste material — mostly contaminated soil — have been safely transported and disposed at ERDF.

   “The credit for our cleanup success at the 618-10 Burial Ground goes to our workers, who have been committed to working safely and efficiently since we began trench remediation activities in April 2011,” Sax said. “The burial ground is full of unknown hazards, which require careful, detailed planning and deliberate execution. I could not be more proud of the entire 618-10 project team and those who have supported the cleanup effort.”

   The 7.5-acre burial ground operated from 1954 to 1963, receiving waste generated primarily from Hanford’s 300 Area, where new methods were developed to separate plutonium from nuclear fuel.