The Hanford Tanks

The nuclear reactors and separation plants at the Hanford Site in Washington State made the plutonium for the bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. Plutonium production expanded during the Cold War and continued into the late 1980s leaving Hanford with a majority of the national inventory of high-level radioactive waste stored in its underground tanks. This book tells the story of one specific tank, the million-gallon double-shell tank 241-SY-101 in Hanford's 200-West Area. SY-101 was a dominating element in DOE waste management for the last decade of the 20th century. The possibility of a flammable gas burn in SY-101 was acknowledged as the safety issue of highest priority in the entire DOE complex during the early 1990s. Uncontrolled crust growth demanded another large-scale emergency effort in the late 1990s that finally allowed the tank to return to service in September 2001. It received its first waste as an "active" tank in November 2002. The experience spawned a legacy of inspired engineering, tight project discipline, and supportive teamwork that still affects the Hanford culture today. This narrative presents the whole SY-101 story from the viewpoint of those who lived through it. If it makes people who work in nuclear waste management pause and worry a little when funding, scheduling, or political pressures curtail creativity and prudence, the book will have served its purpose.