The Reactor Compartment

USS SARGO (SSN 583)

THE REACTOR COMPARTMENT

JUST KIDDING! Still can't go there, but check out where it ended up.

(Click on Pictures to Enlarge!)

A defueled reactor compartment (right) is shown separated from the rest of the submarine. Once separated, special steel bulkheads are attached to both ends of the compartment and welded into place. After their radioactive fuel is removed, the compartments are classified as low level waste.
(Photo and text courtesy Brookings Institute)

Once sealed off, the reactor compartments are shipped by barge out of Puget Sound, down the coast and along the Columbia River to the port of Benton, south of the Hanford Reservation. There the compartments are transferred to special multiwheeled high-load trailers for transport to Trench 94 in the Hanford Reservation's 218-E-12B burial ground (near the center of the site), raised onto support columns, and welded into place. In this November 1994 photograph of Trench 94, forty-three reactor compartments are visible and foundations are being prepared for a forty-fourth. Once full, the trench will be filled with dirt and buried. The compartments are expected to retain their integrity for more than 600 years.
(Photo and text courtesy Brookings Institute)

Hanford Reservation Site Map
Site map of the Hanford site showing 200-East storage area

(Photo courtesy Tom Jordan)

A satelite photo of the Hanford storage area 200-East

(Photo courtesy Tom Jordan)

The Sargo's Reactor Compartment's final resting place (location #45) inside of Trench 94

Many thanks to Tom Jordan for allowing me to use pictures from his website. You can visit his site at:

USS Tunny (SSN 682)

		A defueled reactor compartment (right) is shown separated from the rest of the submarine. Once separated, special steel bulkheads are attached to both ends of the compartment and welded into place. After their radioactive fuel is removed, the compartments are classified as low level waste. (Photo and text courtesy Brookings Institute)

		Once sealed off, the reactor compartments are shipped by barge out of Puget Sound, down the coast and along the Columbia River to the port of Benton, south of the Hanford Reservation. There the compartments are transferred to special multiwheeled high-load trailers for transport to Trench 94 in the Hanford Reservation's 218-E-12B burial ground (near the center of the site), raised onto support columns, and welded into place. In this November 1994 photograph of Trench 94, forty-three reactor compartments are visible and foundations are being prepared for a forty-fourth. Once full, the trench will be filled with dirt and buried. The compartments are expected to retain their integrity for more than 600 years. (Photo and text courtesy Brookings Institute)