Description of the solid waste container corrosion program at the Hanford Site

Waste management and environmental restoration are the Prime missions of the Hanford site, owned by the Department of Energy and operated by a management and operations contractor. The Site is located in southeast Washington State; its focus since World War II was the production of nuclear material to be used in atomic weapons but now is environmental cleanup. The cleanup of the site presents formidable challenges. The degradation of containers used to store radioactive and hazardous waste presents one of these challenges. Such containers, primarily 55 gallon (208 liter) drums, have been stored for eventual retrieval and re-packing for final disposal, some since 1970, in various types of environments. The expected degradation during storage must be estimated, verified, and predicted to allow prudent waste storage. several programs have been put into place at the Hanford Site to facilitate corrosion measurement and prediction