Basalt reservation

The other three major activities within the waste isolation program are specific to particular sites. We are currently evaluating the potential of deep basalt flows below the Hanford reservation in the State of Washington. This work is managed by the Richland Operations Office and is being conducted by the Rockwell Hanford Company. An evaluation of a potential site is underway in southeast New Mexico for the location of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) which is primarily a facility for the placement of transuranium contaminated wastes (TRU) from the defense program. 

We are presently constructing a near-surface test facility at the Hanford reservation which will be located in a basaltic flow in the side of a mountain there. This facility will have electrical heaters emplaced in it in 1979 and by 1980 we expect to emplace encapsulated cylinders containing spent fuel elements there. A second project under development will provide placement of spent fuel in similar containers in a deep granite facility at the... 

The basalt formulation employs Columbia River-type basalt as a source of silica. Extensive deposits of this basalt underlie the Hanford Reservation so that it is readily available as a raw material for large-scale glass-making. The chemical composition of typical Columbia River basalt is shown in Table VI physical properties of this type of basalt have been determined by Krupka (8) and Leibowitz, Williams, and Chasanov (9). We also note that incorporation of radioactive waste material into melted basalt was studied briefly earlier in Czechoslovakia by Saidl and Ralkova (10). 

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