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The rule affects the most challenging and expensive part of the Hanford cleanup — some 56 million gallons of waste, a mix of liquids, sludges and a moist sandlike material called salt cake — that have been stored in aging tanks, some of which are leaking.

The outcome is a dry “salt cake” that can be disposed of at a hazardous waste dump.

Cooling water will be distilled to remove minerals and other contaminants, leaving behind a “salt cake” that will be contained and disposed in a landfill.

It’s very difficult to get a representative sample from any given tank because the waste has settled into layers, starting with a baked-on “hard heal” at the bottom, a layer of salt cake above that, a layer of gooey sludge, then fluid, and finally gases in the headspace between the fluid and the ceiling.

Most of the radioactivity is in the solids and sludge whereas most of the volume is in the liquids and the salt cake.