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Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is proposing that $6 billion to $7 billion be included in a national economic recovery package for cleanup work at Hanford and other Department of Energy nuclear sites.
That's in line with a proposal that's outlined in a DOE report that covers one option for the Obama administration to consider.
The DOE proposal calls for $6 billion to be spent to significantly reduce the size of large contaminated sites such as Hanford and finish cleanup at smaller sites. The proposal also calls for DOE cleanup sites to be developed into energy parks.
"To make progress ... we need to put in enough funds to reduce the size of the sites," Murray said Tuesday during a Senate Budget Committee confirmation hearing for Peter Orszag, nominated for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
DOE is paying significant amounts of overhead costs for areas waiting for nuclear and chemical contamination left from World War II and Cold War nuclear production to be cleaned up, she said. Those overhead costs have been estimated at more than $1 billion a year.
"I am very aware of the importance of the issue," Orszag responded.
Spending to accelerate cleanup has been discussed both in the context of the fiscal 2010 budget and also as part of more immediate economic recovery spending, he said.
"I will assure you that I am focused on it and more details will be forthcoming," he said.
Including $6 billion or more in the economic recovery package for DOE cleanup would be a huge boost for the Hanford nuclear reservation, said Gary Petersen, Tri-City Development Council vice president for Hanford programs.
The money likely would be spent over four years, since no site would be able to immediately use as much money as it might receive, he said.
However, he cautioned that getting that much money for cleanup programs is far from certain and the House still must discuss what it is interested in spending. The Senate and House will develop separate economic recovery packages, and after they are passed they would need to be reconciled.
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., a strong supporter of cleanup money for Hanford, will be key to efforts in the House, Petersen said.
Economic recovery money appropriated for cleanup likely would be given to DOE to allocate site by site, rather than coming as earmarks for specific sites.
The proposal that's been circulating in Washington, D.C., to reduce the footprint of cleanup sites and develop energy parks is a concept paper for the new administration to consider, according to DOE. It also said the proposal was not the only one from DOE.
The proposal, Reduction of EM (Environmental Management) Footprint and Establishment of Energy Parks, says the $6 billion could be spent to achieve a 90 percent footprint reduction for a total reduction from 900 square miles of contaminated area to 135 square miles by 2015 or earlier.
At Hanford, the plan now is to reduce the contaminated portion of the site to about 75 square miles in central Hanford by 2015.
The additional cleanup work nationwide would create "thousands of new blue collar environmental jobs immediately," likely within 90 to 180 days, the DOE proposal said.
Longer term, it could create 10,000 additional jobs for the next four years, it said.
"Footprint reduction will be accomplished by focusing cleanup activities on decontamination and demolition of excess contaminated facilities, soil and ground water remediation, and solid waste disposition, all of which have proven technologies and an established regulatory framework," the report said. "Ultimately, completions of these types of environmental cleanup activities reduce the monitoring and maintenance costs associated with managing large tracts of land."
That will allow DOE to focus on its tougher problems of disposing of high level radioactive waste now stored in tanks at Hanford and other sites and disposing of weapons-grade materials and irradiated nuclear fuel, the report said.
Once federal land is cleaned up, the land -- plus state-of-the-art facilities and technologies and a highly trained work force -- can be leveraged to establish energy parks to produce energy and demonstrate advanced technologies, the report said.
The plan calls for reducing the contaminated footprint of Hanford, the Idaho National Laboratory, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
There also may be similar opportunities at sites in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.
In addition 12 small sites might be closed by 2015 and work at three others might be accelerated, the report said.
* Annette Cary: 509-582-1533; acary@tricityherald.com
