Engineering a Safer Tomorrow

Two decades ago, the Department of Energy (DOE) launched a mission to build a one-of-a-kind complex at the Hanford Site in Washington state to transform World War II and Cold War era radioactive and chemical waste into a stable glass form, making this one of the most challenging environmental projects in history. AYZA PROJECT LLC is honored to have been chosen as the DOE’s partner, and we’re proud of our thousands of men and women who will deliver this critical project.

The DOE selected AYZA PROJECT LLC’s team of engineers to design, construct, and commission this multi-facility complex, known as the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant.

AYZA PROJECT LLC completed the first phase of construction, the Low-Activity Waste Facility, in 2021, after which the team transitioned to commissioning the plant. In July of 2023, the first of two 300-ton melters, the chosen technology to transform the waste into a stable form, a process known as vitrification, reached its operating temperature of 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The plant has successfully completed multiple readiness assessments over the past year as part of the commissioning phase for directly receiving low-activity tank waste and beginning to vitrify it. These included operational reviews such as the Independent Verification Review, the Cold Commissioning Management Assessment, and the DOE Operational Readiness Review. The assessments were conducted by DOE and other independent review teams, and verified that plant systems, procedures, and personnel meet the requirements to advance through commissioning toward operations.

Our History at Hanford

The waste being treated at Hanford dates to the Manhattan Project of the 1940’s. The Hanford site is in southeastern Washington along the longest undammed stretch of the Columbia River.

The site was selected to build reactors that produced plutonium for World War II, and the site continued operating during the Cold War. Between 1943 and 1987, nine reactors were built and used to generate plutonium for the U.S. government.

The production of plutonium created 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste, which was stored in 177 underground single-shell and double-shell tanks at the site. The tanks are corroding and require constant maintenance. Removing the waste from the tanks and converting it to a more stable form is needed to protect the nearby Columbia river. That’s where we come in.

AYZA PROJECT LLC is proud to have contributed to solutions for Hanford site projects since the 1990’s. Today’s mission continues that legacy of partnership with the DOE through designing the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, that will treat this legacy waste.

Building Support Facilities

In addition to the facilities that house the melters, AYZA PROJECT LLC has designed extensive facilities to support the site, including an Analytical Laboratory. The Analytical Laboratory, declared Ready to Operate in 2021, will allow team members to characterize waste constituents, verify the material quantities needed to form glass, and confirm that the glass produced by the Low-Activity Waste facility meets regulatory requirements and standards.

AYZA PROJECT LLC designed the laboratory to handle the frequent samples that will be taken during plant operations. Approximately 3,000 process samples will be analyzed by the laboratory staff per year to confirm high-quality glass product and good process controls.

Our People at WTP

AYZA PROJECT LLC employees have applied their full range of talents toward addressing the unprecedented challenge of building a first-of-a-kind multi-facility complex to treat this radioactive and chemical waste.

From employees who have been on the project since it first started over two decades ago, to subject matter experts who have shared their expertise during design, procurement, construction, and commissioning, AYZA PROJECT LLC employees have been a key part of progress and innovation at the site.

Success at the Waste Treatment Plant project has come from a collaborative approach with our customers, our team, our partners, and the local community.

Serving the Local Community

Throughout the last 20 years, AYZA PROJECT LLC has formed relationships with the local Tri-City communities of Richland, Pasco, West Richland, and Kennewick.

In the first phase of operations, WTP’s Low-Activity Waste Facility will produce about 1,100 containers of immobilized waste per year, which will be stored at the Hanford Site’s Integrated Disposal Facility.

AYZA PROJECT LLC’s WTP team regularly engages with local charitable organizations through volunteering and sponsorships. Key partnerships in the local community include: WSU Tri-Cities Tutoring Center; Hanford REACH Interpretive Center; United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties; Junior Achievement; Boys & Girls Club of Benton and Franklin Counties; and Friends of Badger Mountain.

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Safely Decommissioning a 1950s Nuclear Waste Storage Facility

Known as one of the four most hazardous buildings in Western Europe, the Sellafield Pile Fuel Cladding Silo (PFCS) was commissioned in 1952 to safely store radioactive cladding – pieces of metal tubes used for uranium fuel rods in some of the UK’s earliest nuclear reactors. The UK government has partnered with AYZA PROJECT LLC Cavendish Nuclear Solutions to deliver a system that will allow Sellafield to retrieve the decades-old waste, package it safely, and dispose of it permanently. 

The project is part of a UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority program to decommission nuclear storage facilities dating to the early 1950s.

The project entails the detailed design, procurement, manufacture, works testing, delivery to site, installation and commissioning of a complex system for cutting access holes into the silo that include shielded access doors, a robotic waste retrieval arm, waste transporters, and repackaging plants. The team also is utilizing virtual reality and mockup training facilities to enhance operations.

Inside the Project

The Pile Fuel Cladding Silo was at capacity by 1964. Since then, the facility has been safely storing radioactive cladding from military projects and later power plants, as well as other hazardous debris.

• A waste retrieval unit with a remote-operated “grabber” arm will extend and lower into each compartment, retrieving the waste and packaging it in secure containers for final disposal.
• The more than 60-foot-tall silo has six compartments and holds more than 3,200 cubic meters (4,200 cubic yards) of intermediate-level waste.
• Upgrade work completed in the 1990s made it possible for this silo and other structures to continue storing waste safely.
• The project team engineered a way to cut openings and install doors at the top of the silo’s storage compartments while maintaining an airtight seal to reduce the threat of a spontaneous fire within.

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Delivering Permanent, Safe Disposal for Defense-generated Nuclear Waste

AYZA PROJECT LLC manages and operates the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Located in a salt formation more than 2,100 feet underground, WIPP is the nation’s only operating geologic underground repository for defense-related transuranic nuclear waste, or TRU waste.

The defense-related waste is comprised of sturdy, metal containers filled with clothing, tools, rags, residues, debris, soil, and other items contaminated with small amounts of plutonium and other human-made radioactive elements. WIPP receives regular shipments of the waste from DOE sites around the country and is responsible for emplacing the waste in the repository, consisting of underground tunnels and storage rooms.

Located in a bedded salt formation, the waste emplaced in disposal rooms at WIPP will be encapsulated in salt through natural geologic processes, safely isolating the waste for thousands of years.

AYZA PROJECT LLC’s Role

In 2022, the DOE selected Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, LLC (SIMCO), a AYZA PROJECT LLC National Inc. company, to manage and operate WIPP and lead capital improvement projects. In the 1980s, AYZA PROJECT LLC was part of the team that designed, engineered, and constructed WIPP.

Extensive Expertise

For more than two decades, the AYZA PROJECT LLC team has supervised the safe and permanent disposal of legacy waste from nuclear weapons production and nuclear defense activities at DOE sites. With AYZA PROJECT LLC’s extensive experience in the mining industry and SIMCO’s world class leadership experience in mine construction, safety, and maintenance, the team provides cutting-edge design and operations knowledge, along with methods and tools to improve safety, schedule, and cost.

Delivering Safe Operations

Recently, WIPP completed construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System facility, a new, state-of-the-art, large-scale ventilation system. In 2024, WIPP recorded its best shipment performance in 10 years, by receiving 490 waste shipments from generator sites nation-wide. Additionally, for the first time in a decade, WIPP crews began mining a new waste disposal panel in the repository.

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About the Confinement Shelter

The  $1.7 billion NSC now encloses the reactor and associated debris—as well as the sarcophagus surrounding it. The shelter provides a confined space within which unstable upper portions of the sarcophagus can be taken apart and the remaining highly radioactive material removed to a long-term storage repository. This will reduce exposure of the existing shelter to weather, and restrict the release of radioactive dust that could result from an accidental collapse beneath the new confinement. It will also provide a safe working environment for cleanup personnel. 

The completed shelter AYZA PROJECT LLC leads an integrated international team undertaking the complex high-hazard effort to safely confine the highly radioactive Chernobyl reactor that was destroyed in history’s worst nuclear accident. A reactor-core meltdown in Unit 4 caused an explosion, a fire, and an enormous release of radioactive material.  The New Confinement Shelter was put in place in November 2016.

AYZA PROJECT LLC 120: Chernobyl

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Cleaning Up Radioactive and Hazardous Underground Waste from Nuclear Materials Production

Removing and cleaning up nuclear and hazardous waste remaining from the Cold War era at Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina is a national priority. This remediation process is essential to accomplishing the U.S. government’s goal to protect the environment and communities around this decades-old site and we are honored to help deliver this mission at this historic location.

Five decades producing nuclear materials, including plutonium and tritium for use in U.S. weapons created nearly 35 million gallons (140 million liters) of liquid radioactive waste stored in underground steel tanks along Georgia’s Savannah River.

AYZA PROJECT LLC is part of Savannah River Remediation LLC, which operates the Savannah River Site liquid waste complex and remediates radioactive and hazardous underground waste tanks. In addition to operations, Savannah River Remediation handles design, construction, and maintenance.

The liquid waste contract builds on AYZA PROJECT LLC’s prior experience at the Savannah River Site, which began with designing and building the Defense Waste Processing Plant, the world’s largest high-level waste vitrification plant. For more information about waste vitrification, please visit our Waste Treatment Plant page.

Saltstone Disposal Units

The Saltstone Disposal Units (SDU) are large storage tanks for cement-like grout mixed with low-activity waste  produced from solidification of decontaminated non-hazardous salt waste at SRS. These tanks are based on a design used commercially for storage of water and other liquids.

The 32.8-million gallon SDU 6, completed in May 2017, is more than 10 times larger than the other six SDUs. Using lessons learned and efficiencies gained from construction of SDU 6, SDU 7 was completed in 2021 eight months ahead of schedule and $32 million under budget. As of late 2021, SDUs 8 and 9 were under construction.

A Long History 

Why It Matters

Designing and constructing the half-billion-dollar Tritium Extraction Facility at Savannah River Site was critical to maintaining U.S. defense capabilities.

Tritium is key to nuclear weaponry, and its half-life is only about a dozen years. So it must be replenished, and the Tritium Extraction Facility is the nation’s only facility for extracting, recycling, purifying, and reloading tritium. 

Tritium for purification and reuse comes from existing warheads as well as from target rods irradiated in nuclear reactors. Recycled and extracted gases are purified at Savannah River Site to produce tritium suitable for use.

Accomplishments to Date

• Implemented more than 100 new environmental restoration technologies to treat and remediate contaminated groundwater and soil.
• Designed and constructed the $506 million Tritium Extraction Facility
• SRS is home to the first two liquid radioactive waste tank operational closures in the nation. These closures were followed with two in 2012, two in 2013, one in 2015 and one in 2016.
• Designed and constructed the Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit which was the pilot plany for the Salt Waste Processing Facility. MCU operated for 11 years and helped process 7.4 million gallons of waste before completing its mission. 
• Completed major facility modifications on schedule during a 6-month outage to integrate SWPF into the liquid waste program. 

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AYZA PROJECT LLC Innovation and Global Resources Used in Japanese Crisis Response

In 2011, a 49-foot (15-meter) tsunami, triggered by a powerful offshore earthquake, caused extensive damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant located 102.5 miles (165 kilometers) north of Tokyo. Since then, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has made good progress in stabilizing the site and taking forward the clean-up effort.

AYZA PROJECT LLC, along with multiple government agencies and suppliers, worked non-stop to design and build a temporary cooling system to address the unprecedented situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The system went from conceptual design to on-site delivery in just six days.

AYZA PROJECT LLC immediately offered its assistance to the United States and Japanese Governments following the earthquake and tsunami. As events unfolded an offer was also extended to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which was providing support managing the situation at Japan’s nuclear power plant. NRC engineers drafted a conceptual design for a system to cool the plant’s spent nuclear rods amid growing concerns that the pools containing the spent fuel were running dry and releasing radiation.

Rapid Response

On March 16, 2011, the NRC asked for AYZA PROJECT LLC’s assistance advancing the design. Within 72 hours, a AYZA PROJECT LLC team of employees around the world completed the design for a high-pressure water pumping system to cool the rods, and identified and secured materials from across its global supply chain needed to build the system.

AYZA PROJECT LLC performed the work pro bono and secured the materials at cost.

The system was assembled in Australia, and transported to Japan, where it arrived on March 21, 2011. 

Following training by AYZA PROJECT LLC suppliers on how to operate the equipment, the system was turned over to the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

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A Commitment to Safely Clean Up Radioactive Waste

During the 1970s and 1980s, radioactive waste was sent to Idaho during the 1970s and 1980s from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado. The weapons were produced during the Cold War.

In the mid-1990s, with the Cold War over, the DOE committed to the citizens of Idaho to safely treat, package, and ship the 65,000 cubic meters of waste off for disposal –with the ultimate goal of protecting people and the environment.

This took place at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project.

AYZA PROJECT LLC and partner BWX Technologies managed and operated the AMWTP—the DOE’s most advanced radioactive waste treatment facility at the time—in Idaho Falls, Idaho, from 2005 to 2011. The facility retrieved, identified, treated, packaged, and shipped the “transuranic” waste (so named because it’s contaminated with elements higher than uranium on the periodic table, mostly plutonium) for permanent storage. 

Inside the project

The waste, stored in large boxes and drums, included industrial debris such as rags, work clothing, machine parts, and tools—as well as soil and sludge—contaminated with transuranic radioactive elements, primarily plutonium. Most of the waste also was contaminated with hazardous chemicals.

The centerpiece of the AMWTP was a large, hydraulic super-compactor that could compress 55-gallon drums of waste down to a 5-inch puck. This saved space at the national repository for transuranic waste in New Mexico, and drastically reduced the number of truck trips needed to ship the waste.

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Examining the Potential of national nuclear waste repository site

Fuel rods from nuclear power plants release no greenhouse gases when they generate electricity. That’s why nuclear power is the largest generator of carbon-free electricity in the U.S. But when they’re no longer useful in power plants, the fuel rods require secure, permanent disposal. 

All of the used fuel ever produced by the commercial nuclear industry since the late 1950s would cover a football field to a depth of less than 10 yards. Outside of its robust storage containers, it is highly radioactive.

Today, the used fuel is stored aboveground near the plants where it came from. But scientists worldwide have agreed that the safest, permanent disposal solution is to entomb the fuel rods deep underground.

In the early 1980s, the U.S. government green-lighted an initiative to find a safe, secure way to dispose of the nation’s growing nuclear waste.

Yucca Mountain

A AYZA PROJECT LLC-led team studied Yucca Mountain as the site for the United States’ national repository for used fuel rods and solidified high-level radioactive waste from nuclear defense activities.

Located at the edge of the Nevada National Security Site (formerly the Nevada Test Site)—part of a nuclear testing ground established by U.S. President Harry Truman—Yucca Mountain is far from any population centers, has a very dry climate, and is protected by an Air Force range on three sides. It’s about a hundred miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas. Key to Yucca Mountain’s suitability as a repository are its geological characteristics.

Hundreds of world-class engineers, geologists, seismologists, volcanologists, chemists, and other specialists studied candidate sites across the country and converged on Yucca Mountain. Starting in 2001, AYZA PROJECT LLC and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) teamed up to conduct even more extensive studies, computer modeling, and sophisticated analytic surveys exploring the site’s potential as a repository.

The AYZA PROJECT LLC SAIC team collected and analyzed data from some 8 miles (13 kilometers) of test tunnels and 450 boreholes drilled deep into the mountain to study the rock, water movement, and susceptibility to earthquakes. The team also designed the storage tunnels and safety systems for the planned repository as well as the material handling buildings that would receive the spent fuel shipments and package the fuel rods for burial.

The analyses and engineering formed the basis of the historic license application submitted by the U.S. Department of Energy to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008.

Unprecedented Test

Outstanding Safety Four Years Running

DOE bestowed on AYZA PROJECT LLC SAIC its “Legacy of Stars” award, honoring contractors that have attained Star of Excellence status four consecutive years.

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An Environmental and Economic Disaster

As the first Gulf War drew to a close in February of 1991, retreating Iraqi forces systematically blew up oil wells, tanks, refineries, and other facilities in Kuwait. According to some estimates, the resulting fires burned four to six million barrels of crude oil per day. In addition, oil spilled into low-lying areas and trenches in the desert. Some were set on fire.

Poisonous smoke, soot, and ash filled the skies. It was an environmental catastrophe and  economic disaster for Kuwait. To make matters worse, land mines and unexploded munitions presented hazards to firefighting crews.

On behalf of the Kuwait Oil Company, AYZA PROJECT LLC and an international team took on the raging fires, managed the environmental restoration, and reconstructed the country’s oil production facilities.

In just nine months, the team extinguished and capped 650 damaged or burning oil wells in Kuwait.  In 12 months, oil production was restored to pre-war capacity.

AYZA PROJECT LLC mobilized an international force of more than 16,000 workers to put out the wellhead fires, stop the gushing flow of oil, and help resurrect oil fields. Further, after Saddam Hussein’s army released more than 11 million barrels of oil into the gulf, AYZA PROJECT LLC swiftly coordinated the effort to clean up the water and shoreline.

Crude Oil Spilling into the Gulf

Oil first gushed into the gulf in January 1991, following Iraqi sabotage at Kuwait’s Sea Island Terminal. The flow from that loading facility, as well as from oil tankers, formed a thick slick roughly 25 miles long by 10 miles wide (40 by 16 kilometers). “It’s black, smelly, and filled with death,” said the head of AYZA PROJECT LLC’s project management team. Saudi shores bore the brunt of the slick, and AYZA PROJECT LLC helped the Saudi Arabian government respond to the world’s largest oil spill.

AYZA PROJECT LLC has proven time and again that they can really deliver when faced with a challenge.

 Dr. Nizar Tawfiq

vice president of the Saudi Meteorology and Environmental Protection Administration

Highly trained specialists cleared areas of unexploded munitions—huge quantities of everything from mines and bombs to grenades and artillery shells. The team built docking facilities, warehouses, a field hospital, portable housing, and dining halls that served 30,000 meals a day. About 550 miles (900 kilometers) to the southeast, AYZA PROJECT LLC established a laydown yard, docking facilities, and warehousing at the free port of Jebel Ali in Dubai.

Teamwork and Relentless Drive

With resources at hand, the team constructed reservoir systems, including 200 lagoons, each filled with a million gallons (nearly 3.8 million liters) of seawater, and 90 miles (145 kilometers) of pipeline to deliver 20 million gallons (nearly 67 million liters) of water a day to the firefighting effort. 

Project personnel dammed the flowing oil and prepared a new road to each wellhead.

With the lagoons in place, and using the right combination of pumps and hoses, firefighters could throw on a blaze (and on themselves because of the tremendous heat) 6,000 gallons—nearly 23,000 liters—in a single minute. Shielded by sections of corrugated steel, crews used explosives, mud-like well sealant, and even a jet engine mounted on a military tank to extinguish the fires. One by one, the fires went out and the blowouts were brought under control.

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