Tanks Focus Area: Technology Program to Meet Doe’s Tank Waste Clean-Up Needs

Abstract

The Tanks Focus Area (TFA) was created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Environmental Management to leverage resources to remediate the ∼94,000,000 gallons of radioactive waste. This waste is stored in 273 underground tanks at the Hanford Site, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR), and Savannah River Site (SRS). The TFA is an integrated program that develops and deploys innovative solutions, such as technologies, processes, and data, to safely and efficiently meet the sites’ needs. To meet the needs, the TFA has assembled a team of experts from national laboratories, government contractors, industry, and academia as well as stakeholder and regulatory organizations. These people are organized into a variety of smaller teams. These functions of the teams are footnoted when the team is first mentioned. Technically, the focus area is organized around the functions needed to remediate the waste and close the tanks: retrieval, pretreatment, immobilization, characterization, and closure. Each function is assigned to a Technology Integration Manager (TIM);¹ in addition, a TIM is assigned to oversee safety as it relates to safe waste storage and to the other functions.