A new agreement for cleaning up the Hanford Reservation. We hope.

To me it feels like they have been doing clean up at the Hanford Reservation for decades. At times it has seems never ending, but it's only been the last couple of years that any kind of agreement among multiple agencies has come about. 

According to keprtv.com.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Washington State Department of Ecology have agreed on a course of action for cleaning up Hanford site waste. Currently, there are around 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste stored underground in 177 tanks. But their focus today is to get started on retrieving waste from 22 tanks in Hanford's 200 West Area by 2040.” 

There are two main cleanup methods that are being explored. Grouting and vitrification. A spokesperson for the US Department of Energy described Grouting as taking waste with less radioactivity, mixing it with grout so that it becomes stable and then transferring it to a safe permitted landfill. 

For waste with higher radioactivity levels there is vitrification. That's where you take the waste, mix it with glass enabling it to be stored in a more stable state until they can decide where it's supposed to go. 

There's a lot of history to the Hanford Reservation going all the way back to the 40s. But according to Wikipedia.
“On May 15, 1989, the Washington Department of Ecology (WSDE), the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the DOE entered into the Tri-Party Agreement, which provides a legal framework for environmental remediation at Hanford.[232] By 2014, the agencies were engaged in the world's largest environmental cleanup, with many challenges to be resolved in the face of overlapping technical, political, regulatory, and cultural interests.” 

Back then we thought it was going to be licked in 10 to 20 years. (Not so much.) 

So yes, this process has been going on for a long time. And unfortunately, it will be going on for a long time to come. 

New Hanford Site cleanup agreement (keprtv.com)
Hanford Site - Wikipedia