The spent nuclear fuel is removed before dismantlement begins.
A defueled reactor compartment (right) is shown separated from the rest of the submarine. Once separated, special steel bulkheads are attached to both ends of the compartment and welded into place.
After their radioactive fuel is removed, the compartments are classified as low level waste, and they are sealed off.
Sealed reactor compartments are shipped by barge out of Puget Sound, down the coast and along the Columbia River to the port of Benton. There the radioactively-contaminated hull sections are transferred to special multiwheeled high-load trailers for transport to the Hanford Reservation.
Managed by DOE, Hanford covers approximately 500 square miles of government owned land and is located northwest of the city of Richland, WA. In early 1943, the US Army Corps of Engineers selected Hanford as the location for reactor, chemical seperation, and related facilities involving the production and purification of plutonium. That's what all those "reactor" references on the map are. But they aren't talking about submarines. The Waste Management program operates disposal facilties at the 200 Area Burial Grounds. Almost everything I found on the internet about the Hanford Site was about the environmental impact of the site.
Hanford divides the entire site into sections 100, 200, etc. The 200 Area Burial Grounds are classified as a shallow landfill disposal facility. Shallow land disposal of solid waste has occurred at Hanford since the late 1940's. The 200 Area burial grounds cover an area of about 1,050 acres, of which 550 acres is active. Submarine reactor compartments are stored in the "200 East" area.
The 200 Area landfill is divided into eight burial grounds: Two considered in the 200 East area, and Six located in the 200 West Area.
Burial Ground 218-E-12B began disposing wastes in trenches in 1962 and covers 173 acres. Waste contained in this burial ground includes Transuranic waste and low level waste. And TUNNY's RC.
Here is another map showing the relative location of the Hanford site to the Columbia River and the city of Richland, WA.
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www.flash.net/%7Etomj/tunny/chop/hanford012.jpg[/img]Here is a satellite map of the 200 East area. The official Hanford storage designation we are interested in is 218-E-12B. Inside the section, each specific storage area has a name. Reactor Compartments are stored in Trench 94. You can click on the map to see a bigger image / up closer.
I have circled Trench 94 in red for you.
Site Code: 218-E-12B
DOE Program: EM-30
Site Names: ... includes 218-E-1: (several), includes 218-E-12B Burial Ground - trench 94
Site Type: Burial Ground
Site Status: Active
Start Date: 1967
Coordinates: (E) 574796.312 (N) 1374476.5 Washington State Plane
Site description: The burial ground contains 138 trenches running north and south. Sixty one of the trenches are 370 meters (960 feet) long, thirty one of the trenches are 293 meters long, and the remaining trenches vary. Trench 94 contains defueled US Navy submarine reactor compartments. The burial ground is marked and radiologically posted.
Waste Description: Trench 94 is oriented in an east-west direction. The reactor compartments are composed of various types of steel and approximately 392 tons of lead shielding.
Trench 94, Hanford Site, Washington, 1994. Hull sections containing defueled reactor compartments of decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines are put in disposal trenches. In 1986, the Patrick Henry's hull section was the first one placed in Trench 94.
NOV 1994 - 43 Compartments stored
Trench 94 in the Hanford Reservation's 218-E-12B burial ground (near the center of the site), raised onto support columns, and welded into place. In this November 1994 photograph of Trench 94, forty-three reactor compartments are visible and foundations are being prepared for a forty-fourth. Once full, the trench will be filled with dirt and buried. The compartments are expected to retain their integrity for more than 600 years.
Photo from Hanford Site Report (July 1998), Trench 94
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www.flash.net/%7Etomj/tunny/chop/trench94_3.jpg[/img]A guy walking on the floor of Trench 94. July 1998.
Use of the thick steel submarine hull as a disposal provides extra isolation between the environment and the low-level waste and hazardous lead that remain after the spent nuclear fuel has been removed.
This is my neck of the woods.As beautiful as this area is,these fucks don't get it.At the Bonneville Dam when the transformers were used up and replaced,the Army Corp of Morons dropped these PCB laden things right off the back side of the damn. The lamps mentioned in the article ain't shit compared to these monstor transformers. Brent Foster, pictured next ,is a local attorney that I had the privelage to work with to defeat the fluoride mess that the dentists were pushing in Hood River.Hood River is about 20 miles behind that big rock in the first picture.