Publication Laka-library:
A history of major Hanford operations involving radioactive material. PNL-6964 HEDR, UC-603 (1989)
| Author | M.Y.Ballinger, R.B.Hall |
| Date | June 1989 |
| Classification | 3.01.8.43/21 (UNITED STATES - SITES - HANFORD) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
ABSTRACT The Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction (HEDR) Project was established in 1987 to estimate radiation doses that people could have received from nuclear operations at the Hanford Site since 1944. Hanford Site operations began in 1944 to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. This effort included fabricating fuel elements, irradiating the fuel in nuclear reactors, and separating the resulting plutonium from uranium and fission byproducts. To build a foundation for the first step in estimating radiation doses--estimating the amount and type of radioactive materials released to the environment--HEDR staff at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory compiled and summarized historical information that describes the processes and facilities in which radioactive material was generated or used at the Hanford Site. This document categorizes nuclear operations under six processes: fuel fabrication, reactor operations, fuel separations, plutonium finishing, research and development, and tank farms and waste recovery. Historical emission controls and effluent monitoring are discussed for each process. The time period under study ranges from the startup of nuclear operations in 1944 to the present; this report emphasizes the earlier years from 1944 to the mid-1960s. Timetables are provided for each operation to identify operational periods and major changes that may have affected the release of radionuclides to the environment. Because Hanford Site operations used the first large-scale nuclear facilities of their kind, process development and effluent control measures evolved as knowledge about the processes improved. Over the years, facilities were added or modified to improve processes, accelerate production, and better control emissions to the environment. Changes in each of these areas influenced the quantity and types of radioactive contaminants released to the environment. Separate HEDR documents contain estimates of the quantities of these radioactive contaminants.
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