US Ecology is a disposal facility that is licensed by the state of Washington to receive commercial low-level radioactive waste. Located in the center of the Hanford site, the facility operates on 100 acres of land leased to the state by the federal government.
The US Ecology site is a waste landfill that has been in operation since 1965. Before 1993, the landfill accepted low-level radioactive waste from across the United States. Since that time, the facility has restricted disposal to waste originating in the eight states of the Northwest Interstate Compact (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) and the three states of the Rocky Mountain Compact (Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico). The Washington State Department of Health oversees operations and facility closure.
The Columbia Generating Station is located on land leased at the Hanford site and is the Northwest’s only nuclear energy facility. The plant consists of a boiling water reactor and uses nuclear fission to heat water into high-pressure steam.
The facility is owned and operated by Energy Northwest, an agency that develops, owns, and operates power facilities in Washington. We work with the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC), a Washington state agency led by a chair appointed by theGovernor, to oversee the nuclear power plant. (Photo courtesy Energy Northwest)
Perma-Fix Northwest is a waste storage and treatment facility specializing in treating low-level and mixed low-level waste. We regulate the mixed waste stored and treated at the facility, consisting of waste from Hanford and other in-state or out-of-state mixed waste generators.
We oversee the permit for storage of dangerous and mixed waste at the U.S. Navy's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. The shipyard is a home port for both active and inactive vessels, and is used to maintain, overhaul, decommission, and dismantle vessels in service of the United States Navy.
Dangerous and mixed waste is generated during laboratory analysis, on-site demolition, and from production work including removal and installation of components on vessels, on-vessel and off-vessel repair of components, and the decommissioning and dismantling of vessels. (Photo courtesy Puget Sound Naval Shipyard)