Case study in corporate memory recovery: Hanford tank farms miscellaneous underground waste storage tanks - 15344

In addition to managing the 177 underground waste storage tanks containing 212,000 m³ (56 million gal) of radioactive waste at the U. S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site 200 Area Tank Farms, Washington River Protection Solutions LLC is responsible for managing numerous small catch tanks and special surveillance facilities. These are collectively known as 'MUSTs' - Miscellaneous Underground Storage Tanks. The MUSTs typically collected drainage and flushes during waste transfer system piping changes; special surveillance facilities supported Tank Farm processes including post-World War II uranium recovery and later fission product recovery from tank wastes. Most were removed from service following deactivation of the single-shell tank system in 1980 and stabilized by pumping the remaining liquids from them. The MUSTs were isolated by blanking connecting transfer lines and adding weatherproofing to prevent rainwater entry. Over the next 30 years MUST operating records were dispersed into large electronic databases or transferred to the National Archives Regional Center in Seattle, Washington. During 2014 an effort to re-acquire the historical bases for the MUSTs' published waste volumes was undertaken. Corporate Memory Recovery from a variety of record sources allowed waste volumes to be initially determined for 21 MUSTs, and waste volumes to be adjusted for 37 others. Precursors and symptoms of Corporate Memory Loss were identified in the context of MUST records recovery. (authors)