Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008

Tri-Party litigation would hurt Hanford cleanup

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

Hanford cleanup and the economy of the Tri-City area will suffer if negotiations over the Tri-Party Agreement fail, warned the Tri-City Development Council and the Hanford Communities.

"We are extremely concerned about the very real risks and fallout that will result if agreement is not reached and litigation in some form becomes the foremost consideration," wrote the two agencies in a letter this week to Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

The letter urged the state and the federal government, particularly the Department of Justice, to go to extra lengths to resolve differences in negotiations.

If legal steps must be taken as a last resort, a consent decree would be less damaging than a lawsuit, said the letter, which was signed by TRIDEC President Carl Adrian and Ed Revell, chairman of the Hanford Communities board. The Hanford Communities board includes representatives from Richland, Kennewick, Pasco, West Richland, Benton County and the Port of Benton.

Gregoire and Bodman met last week in Washington, D.C., to discuss major changes to the Tri-Party Agreement, which sets legal deadlines for cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation. Renegotiation of the agreement began in spring 2007 after it became clear DOE could not meet major deadlines for emptying leak-prone tanks of radioactive waste and beginning treatment of the waste at the vitrification plant under construction.

TRIDEC and the Hanford Communities have not seen the proposal now being discussed, but based on what they have been told believe it is well crafted and that only a few high-level issues remain unresolved.

But if attorneys, particularly the U.S. Department of Justice which is representing DOE, cannot sign off on a final version of the renegotiated agreement, a lawsuit could lead to a halt of cleanup projects and put money from Congress at risk, the agencies said.

Washington's congressional leaders are having increasing difficulty finding support for enough money to continue Hanford cleanup projects, the letter said. Next year a new administration likely is to be focused on working on the nation's energy problems rather than Cold War nuclear site cleanup when it sets the DOE budget, said Gary Petersen, TRIDEC vice president of Hanford programs.

"Having litigation take place will only provide an excuse for a new administration or Congress to slow funding until the courts determine the path forward," the letter said.

Once work is stopped on a project, too often it never is restarted. Any litigation that includes the $12.2 billion vitrification plant would put its completion in jeopardy, the letter said.

"Our community clearly understands that collateral damage from legal action on the Tri-Party Agreement will primarily be felt here," the letter said. "In the larger sense, we also cannot see how litigation will help clean up the Hanford site."

The state has said it prefers to reach an agreement rather than take legal action to force Hanford cleanup, but will only back an agreement if it's in the state's best interest to protect human health and the environment.