Sodium draining under way at Hanford’s Fast Flux Test Facility

RICHLAND — Workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation have begun draining sodium from the Fast Flux Test Facility, a one-of-a-kind reactor that local groups had been hoping to save from demolition and restart.

“This is just another step in the deactivation process we’ve been engaged in for some time,” said Colleen Clark, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Richland Operations office. “The focus is on doing it safely and on schedule.”

The FFTF was built to test advanced nuclear fuels. It operated from 1982 until 1992 and was used for research, to produce medical and industrial isotopes, and to make tritium.

The Energy Department ordered the facility shut down permanently in 1993, unable to justify the then-$100 million operating budget. The department later agreed to try to find another use for it.

In January 2001, the Clinton administration ordered FFTF shut down for good. When the Bush administration took office, it also tried and failed to come up with a mission for the reactor and, in December 2001, ordered FFTF decommissioned.

By late afternoon Monday, 15,000 of the 150,000 gallons of liquid sodium in the reactor’s primary cooling loops had been drained. Earlier this year, the secondary cooling loops were drained.

Once the sodium is drained, restarting the reactor would be prohibitively expensive.

“The sodium drain has given us no option to go forward,” said Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver, who had fought for a restart.