Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI) is hiring and training dozens of laboratory and radiological technicians at Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant to prepare for cold commissioning, when operators will run a non-radioactive waste simulant through the plant to ensure systems are working properly. The first class of 12 new laboratory technicians is in training.

The Vit Plant team has started training commissioning technicians and supervisors to monitor and manage the two 300-ton melters in the Low-Activity Waste Facility that are at the heart of the process of vitrifying, or immobilizing in glass, Hanford tank waste using the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) approach. Twenty commissioning technicians and four control room supervisors recently began their training at the plant’s simulator building, an offsite duplicate of the LAW Facility control room.

The Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) and Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI) recently declared the Hanford Vit Plant’s Analytical Laboratory “Ready to Operate” for transforming low-activity waste into an immobilized form safe for storage.