ANNOUNCEMENT

Department of Energy Office of River Protection P.O. Box 450 Richland, Washington 99352 To: All ORP Employees Subject: Message from the Secretary of Energy Over the past few months, I and a team of top scientists and engineers assembled to review several of the technical challenges associated with the design of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, or WTP, at the Hanford Site. In addition, these experts have provided independent advice on some of the broader challenges associated with completing the tank waste mission. I am confident that with this increased focus on the resolution of technical challenges, the addition of expertise from academia, National Laboratories and industry, and some additional analysis and testing, we will be able to resolve the remaining technical challenges and ensure the mission will be accomplished safely and efficiently. As the Department proceeds with resolution of these technical challenges, I am going to continue to remain engaged and will ask the experts I assembled to stay engaged. Dave Huizenga, Senior Advisor for Environmental Management, has also been a key participant in this effort, and I will continue to rely upon him to ensure the work that needs to be done dayto-day continues. Additionally, Langdon Holton, one of the experts who has been working on the review, has agreed to play an increasingly important role in resolving technical issues at the Office of River Protection. He will continue his work in conjunction with a core team from DOE and contractors, which will oversee the work of several technical teams, each focused on a particular issue. These teams will draw upon the expertise of DOE and BNI employees, as well as experts from industry, academia, and the DOE National Laboratories and DOEs Office of Science. Throughout the process, DOE will ensure highly technical staff are positioned to advance technical solutions and determine if any design changes are needed to address the following issues:
Full-Scale Vessel Testing. This team will redefine the testing program for the pulse-jet mixed vessels to require full scale testing of the actual vessels using relevant chemical and physical simulants to demonstrate their design functions. This change in strategy is being done to provide a higher level of assurance that the vessels will meet their mixing functions compared to the current plan which uses computational fluid dynamic modeling or testing at smaller scales.

ORP No. 12-117

Issued: 11/8/2012

 In-Service Inspection/Redundancy. The WTP Black Cells were designed to operate for 40 years with no maintenance. As part of our efforts to ensure the plant will be able to operate safely for this design life, more analysis is required to ensure adequate equipment redundancies necessary to allow the waste treatment mission to continue if a problem is identified or a component fails, and to allow for inspection, detection and in-situ repair capabilities.

Black Cell Analysis. Two of the principle issues facing WTP pulse-jet mixed vessels involve the potential build-up of hydrogen gas and a potential criticality in the event of inadequate mixing. The Black Cell Analysis team will evaluate those issues as well as the structural design of the vessels and piping designs to ensure their adequacy.

Erosion/Corrosion. Erosion and corrosion of vessel and piping materials has been identified as an issue that may reduce the design-life of the plant. This team will provide input regarding the test program and the design solutions needed to resolve these issues.

Identification of Tank Farm Waste Pre-Treatment Requirements/Facilities. While these WTP technical issues are being resolved, we will have a team looking at the capabilities needed to ensure that the waste that will be fed to the Pretreatment, Low-Activity Waste, or High-Level Waste facilities has characteristics that are consistent with what we know the facility can safely and effectively process. The team will then analyze opportunities to precondition the waste, if necessary, prior to it being sent to the Pretreatment facility, and/or segregate the more difficult to treat waste to enable a direct feed to the High-Level Waste facility or process this waste in some other way.

There will also be a team to oversee the evaluation of opportunities to accelerate the mission, or make operations more efficient in the future. Were looking at updating earlier analyses and developing the most effective approaches. Ben Harp, the responsible manager for ensuring the entire tank waste immobilization and disposal process will work as one integrated system, will lead this effort, which will consist of three sub-teams.
Select Supplemental Treatment LAW Waste Form and Secondary Waste Form. As currently designed, the LAW facility may not have the capacity to process all of the waste within its 40-year design life. This team will evaluate options for accelerating the treatment of both the supplemental LAW waste stream that exceeds the existing capacity of the WTP, and the secondary waste that is generated through the course of operating WTP to ensure that the resulting waste forms are protective of the environment.

Evaluate System Changes for Immobilized HLW Waste Form Production and Disposal. This team will analyze the potential of increasing waste loading in the High-Level Waste glass, providing the ability to feed some of the more difficult-to-process waste directly to the HLW facility without substantially

increasing the number of canisters that will need to be disposed of off-site, and exploring potential alternate disposal pathways.

Assess Alternative RPP Mission Strategies. This team will evaluate opportunities for separately operating the LAW and HLW facilities either in advance of the Pretreatment facility being available and/or for those instances when the Pretreatment facility may be out of service during the course of the 40-year operation of WTP. This team will also analyze how to accelerate the removal and disposal of transuranic waste from certain tanks.

Through the work of these teams over the next few months, we expect to have identified a revised path forward outlining the activities and the timelines for the resolution of the technical issues and the consideration of options by the end of the year. We have engaged the State of Washington and appreciate its help and advice. In the meantime, we will maintain our momentum on plant construction in the following areas:
Building the plants Low-Activity Waste facility, as well as support facilities, so that we can meet our target of making glass as soon as practical.

Construction of High-Level Waste Facility walls and slabs and installation of some piping, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and electrical cable tray items. Continuation of the full-scale vessel testing program at the Pretreatment facility and construction of utility systems.

Although there are challenges that remain, we have the right people working on the right issues and will make sure they have the expertise needed to resolve these issues. The tank waste mission at Hanford is a top departmental priority. I am encouraged that we have so many dedicated and capable people involved in this project. Steven Chu Secretary of Energy