EM News Flash | Sept. 5, 2017 Hanford Site Cleanup By the Numbers

EM News Flash | Sept. 5, 2017

Cleanup by the Numbers: EM Releases New Infographics on Sites’ Progress   WASHINGTON, D.C. – EM has updated its set of “By the Numbers” infographics, filled with metrics and factoids demonstrating EM’s cleanup progress.    All 14 infographics — one for each major site across the complex and EM’s Savannah River National Laboratory — are available to the public on this EM webpage.    The infographics highlight each site’s history and unique cleanup statistics. For example, workers have treated 17 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater at the Hanford Site. At Oak Ridge, crews have torn down 10 million square feet of facilities at the East Tennessee Park.    Other nuggets of information include:  Energy Technology Engineering Center — Only 18 buildings remain at Santa Susana Field Laboratory’s Area IV of more than 270 once found onsite; Hanford Site — 879 facilities, many contaminated, have been demolished; Idaho Site — 260 shipments of remote handled transuranic waste have been shipped offsite for permanent disposal; Los Alamos National Laboratory Site — More than half of legacy cleanup has been completed; Moab Site — 133 acres of contaminated soil in off-pile areas of the Moab Site have been remediated; Nevada National Security Site — 256 air, water, and direct radiation monitoring sites located on and off the site; Oak Ridge Site — 880 acres transferred to the community for industrial growth and economic redevelopment; Paducah Site — 7,500 gallons of trichloroethene (TCE) and other volatile organic compounds have been removed from the environment using pump-and-treat technology and by treating source areas; Portsmouth Site — More than 705,000 square feet of buildings demolished, eliminating contamination sources, improving worker safety, and reducing surveillance and maintenance costs; Savannah River Site — 8 waste tanks have been operationally closed to date; Savannah River National Laboratory — Over $5 billion in complex-wide savings for the EM program due to innovations developed in the past 5 years; Separations Process Research Unit — More than 8 miles of process piping removed and shipped for disposal; Waste Isolation Pilot Plant — 171,220 containers have been emplaced in the WIPP underground; and  West Valley Demonstration Project — 275 waste canisters of vitrified high-level radioactive waste, plus 3 canisters of decontamination waste, were removed from the storage cell in the former reprocessing plant and have been loaded into 56 vertical storage casks.