A worker watches test bubblers in operation at the Hanford Site. (Photo: DOE)
Native bees swarm near a hive at the former K Reactor Area on the Hanford Site. Bees swarm and begin looking for a new place to nest when a colony becomes overcrowded. (Photo: DOE)
The area near the Hanford Site’s former K reactors is buzzing with activity as several of the Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup projects continue near the Columbia River in Washington state.
That’s not the only thing that’s buzzing, however. While preparing some old equipment for removal earlier this spring, workers with Central Plateau Cleanup Company (CPCCo), a contractor of the DOE Office of Environmental Management Richland Operations Office, discovered a large colony of native bees.
Click to see full image. (Photo: DOE)
Department of Energy contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company recently completed final demolition activities at the Hanford Site’s former Plutonium Finishing Plant, which was once one of the most hazardous facilities in the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) cleanup complex.
Check out this time-lapse video of the plant’s demolition from October 2016 through November 2021.
Nicholas Callihan, left, and Julissa Quinonez Chavez, front, complete training to become qualified as control room supervisor and utilities operator for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. (Photo: DOE)
An aerial view of Hanford’s Liquid Effluent Retention Facility Basin 44 with its new cover installed. (Photo: DOE)
Record-breaking heat and the vast size of the job did not stop the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection and its tank operations contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), from completing a construction project critical to the Hanford Site’s Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste program for treating radioactive tank waste.