Office of River Protection
About Us

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Site in Southeastern Washington State sits adjacent to the Columbia River and is home to 53 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste, which is the result of more than three decades of plutonium production.  The DOE Office of River Protection’s (ORP) mission is to retrieve and treat Hanford’s tank waste and close the tank farms to protect the Columbia River. 

Single-Shell C Tank Farm during construction, November 4, 1944

The chemical and radioactive waste is currently stored in 171 large underground tanks.  ORP and its tank farms contractor, CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. (CH2M HILL), are removing and transferring this waste from the older 149 single-shell tanks (SST) to the newer 28 double-shell tanks (DST), to reduce the environmental risk posed by the older tanks.  The SST’s have a single shell of carbon steel surrounded by reinforced concrete.  The SST’s are the oldest waste storage tanks at Hanford and as many as 67 of these tanks have leaked, up to one million gallons of waste into the soil, resulting in some waste reaching groundwater.  The DST’s have 2 carbon steel shells surrounded by reinforced concrete and none are known to have leaked. 

The cornerstone of the tank waste cleanup project at Hanford is the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP).  Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI), along with its principal subcontractor Washington Group International, Inc. are designing, building, and commissioning the WTP.  The WTP will use a proven technology, called vitrification, to immobilize chemical and radioactive waste in an exceptionally sturdy form of glass to isolate it from the environment.

The WTP will be an industrial complex of facilities for separating and vitrifying (immobilizing in glass) millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical wastes stored at the Hanford Site.  The five major components of the WTP will be the Pretreatment Facility for separating the waste, the High-Level Waste and Low-Activity Waste facilities where the waste will be immobilized in glass, the Analytical Laboratory for testing quality of the glass, and the Balance of Facilities which will comprise over 20 various support facilities.  Once complete, the WTP will be the largest and most capable facility of its kind in the world.

As construction of the WTP continues, ORP is also conducting research and development on bulk vitrification, a second LAW vitrification technology, to determine if it will be suitable for the treatment for the remaining low-activity tank waste.  Bulk Vitrification will supplement the WTP Low-Activity Waste Facility to assist in the timely processing of Hanford’s chemical and radioactive waste.


                                                   WTP Facilities