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General
Nuclear Waste and Nuclear Waste Management at the Hanford Site -- History, Environmental Issues and Policies
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Description
If you missed the event you can watch the recording here
Cited as being the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere, Mr. Weil will cover the history of Hanford from its beginning as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943. He will discuss the construction and operation of multiple processing facilities for the production of plutonium (for more than 60,000 nuclear weapons). He will also discuss waste management activities from the 1940s to today and current activities at the Hanford Site. The presentation will review major activities including the development and impact of the Hanford Federal Facility Compliance Agreement and Consent Order, the construction and operation of the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (a huge landfill on the site receiving remediation waste), the cocooning of production reactors, and the closing and dismantling of large numbers of production facilities on site (including the Plutonium Finishing Plant).
Mr. Weil will also discuss groundwater contamination at the site and groundwater focused remediation activities. He will discuss recovery of waste from older landfills and processing for eventual disposal on site or at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. He will cover the status of the large waste tanks at the site, and the final disposition of the waste stored in more than 175 giant tanks at Hanford. This discussion will include disagreements with the State. Mr. Weil will discuss the timeline for remediation of the Hanford Site, final land use at the site, and the current budget estimates for continuing work through approximately 2075.
Biography:
Steve Weil worked over half of his career in the area of nuclear waste and nuclear waste management. He started as a process engineer at a waste processing plant at the Hanford Site in eastern Washington State (WA). After a break to return to school, he worked for the EPA in the Policy and Toxic Substances area developing regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act. He then worked for three years at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France, focusing on treaty negotiations for stratospheric ozone protection. Returning to EPA in 1983, he worked on review of chemical specific regulations and wrote the initial Land Disposal Restrictions regulations requiring treatment of all hazardous wastes prior to disposal. In 1989, he joined Bechtel Corporation as a regulatory manager in the environmental division. In 1993, Bechtel was awarded a major cleanup contract for the Hanford Site and Mr. Weil returned to Hanford as the Environmental Engineering Manager for the Bechtel Hanford Company. In 1996, he became the Environmental Compliance Manager for the Bechtel contract managing the Nevada Test Site and 6 other locations. In 1998, he moved to the Yucca Mountain Project, working on environmental issues relating to a repository for spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste. In 2004, he returned to the Hanford Site and worked on the Fast Flux Test Reactor Decommissioning, and Tank Closure and Waste Management environmental impact statements. In 2007, Mr. Weil returned to federal employment as the Director, Environmental Management Division, Department of Energy (DOE), Richland Operations Office, Richland, WA. He retired in 2013, but returned to work in 2018 as a consultant for DOEs Richland Operations Office. He has since re-retired.
Mr. Weil received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, 1970, from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA; an M.S. in Chemical Engineering, 1973, from Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR; and an MBA in 1976 from Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. He currently resides in San Francisco.
