Thirty Years of ERDF: How Hanford’s Engineered Landfill Supports Cleanup
ERDF workers transport cleanup waste for permanent disposal at the Hanford Site. Since 1996, crews have logged more than 30 million safe miles moving more than 19 million tons of waste. Image courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management. For 30 years, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (ERDF) has played an […]
Moving Hanford’s Radioactive Capsules Toward Dry Storage
A concrete cask filled with radioactive capsules is placed on an interim dry storage pad near the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility at the Hanford Site. Photo courtesy of Central Plateau Cleanup Company / U.S. Department of Energy. Some of Hanford’s most important cleanup progress happens through steady, carefully planned work that reduces long-term risk […]
The Tri-Party Agreement: A Framework for Hanford Cleanup
After plutonium production ended at Hanford there was a great deal of uncertainty about the path forward for the Site, including the plan for cleanup. On May 15, 1989, the plan began to take shape when the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Washington State Department of Ecology came together […]
As ‘Cleanup to Clean Energy’ initiative moves forward, local community’s voice must be heard
Recent congressional hearings highlight community-led vision for the future of post-cleanup Hanford lands, as well as concerns with the Department of Energy’s current approach In the months since the Department of Energy announced the Cleanup to Clean Energy (C2CE) initiative in the summer of 2023, a coalition including Energy Forward Alliance (EFA) and TRIDEC, in […]