The first capsules of high-level radioactive waste have been removed from a water-filled pool at the Hanford nuclear site to prepare them for safer dry storage in steel-lined, reinforced-concrete casks.

It’s progress that has been 10 years in the making, said Ray Geimer, the new Department of Energy manager of Hanford, speaking at the Oregon Hanford Cleanup Board.

Now the capsules, which contain 30% of the radioactivity at the Hanford site, or about 80 million curies, are at risk of being damaged and releasing radiation in the event of a severe earthquake.

They are stored in a stainless-steel-lined pool that has designed to be used only until about 2004. The pool is in the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility on the end of B Plant in central Hanford.

“By transferring the capsules t

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