The Coolest Thing You’ll See at the Hanford Site Just Arrived

Worth A Look: The Coolest Thing You’ll See at Washington's Hanford Site Just Arrived

Years ago, I took the Hanford Site tour in Washington State through the Department of Energy, and it was so worth it. I highly recommend it, and the best part is that it's free.

You'll see the famous B Reactor but one of the things I thought was amazing to see these massive Defueled reactor compartments from retired nuclear-powered submarines.

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They rest in this massive dug-out valley at the site and it looks like some new ones have arrived according to a post from the Hanford Site:

Two Defueled reactor compartments from retired nuclear-powered submarines arrived this month at the Port of Benton in Richland - The compartments once powered two 361-foot-long Los Angeles-class submarines – the USS City of Corpus Christi (SSN-705) and USS Portsmouth (SSN-707).

Both subs were commissioned in 1983 and conducted many missions worldwide during their operational lifetimes.

The USS Portsmouth and USS City of Corpus Christi were decommissioned in 2004 and 2017, respectively, and the retired vessels were sent to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PSNS & IMF on the Waterfront) for recycling.

As part of the recycling program, the defueled compartments are placed in robust shipping packages, consistent with federal and state regulations, before making the 700-mile journey by barge from the shipyard in Bremerton down the Washington coast and up the Columbia River before being transported on a multi-wheeled transporter to the Hanford Site for safe, permanent disposal.

The special deliveries mark the 143rd and 144th Reactor Compartment Disposal packages safely transported by PSNS & IMF to the Hanford Site since 1986.

So if you get a chance to take the Hanford tour, these amazing compartments will be worth looking for. You can check out more details on the Hanford tours here