Cut of $119M proposed for Hanford budget by Trump administration

President Donald Trump’s administration is proposing cutting $119 million from current spending for the Hanford nuclear reservation in the coming fiscal year.

Almost all of the cut is proposed for the DOE Hanford office in charge of cleaning up of waste sites and facilities, including the aging radioactive waste tunnel that partially collapsed May 9.

The budget would total $2.2 billion plus some additional spending for security, according to information received by the staff of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Murray called the request to Congress “a real disappointment.”

“It puts us in a tough place to continue critical cleanup work and meet legal deadlines,” she said. “I will fight back with every tool that I have to make sure the federal government holds up its end of the bargain.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called the proposed Hanford budget a threat to the site’s workers, the Tri-Cities and the Columbia River.

“We must have full funding for Hanford cleanup — especially after the recent tunnel collapse,” Cantwell said. “Any cuts would be not only irresponsible, but would undermine the federal government’s moral obligation to clean up Hanford.”

The administration proposes a budget, but Congress makes the final spending decision.

The Tri-City Development Council also was not pleased with the numbers.

Adequate funding is essential to reduce risks, reduce the long-term cleanup costs to the American taxpayer and make cleanup progress, said David Reeploeg, TRIDEC vice president for federal programs.

The Office of River Protection at Hanford would see a boost of $5 million to $1.5 billion under the administration’s proposal. The office is in charge of underground tanks holding 56 million gallons of radioactive waste and the vitrification plant being built at an estimated cost of more than $17 billion to treat the waste for disposal.

The budget for the Richland Operations Office, in charge of all other environmental cleanup at Hanford and overall operations, would receive $716 million — that’s nearly $124 million less than current spending and $205 million less than the year before.

No project-by-project breakdown for Richland Operations Office spending was included in the information released by the federal government Tuesday.

The Richland Operations Office has focused on cleanup in the 220 square miles along the Columbia River in recent years, with much of that work completed. Plans called for then shifting its focus to the extensive environmental cleanup still to be done in central Hanford.

Murray, Cantwell and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., reminded Energy Secretary Rick Perry in a letter sent Friday that central Hanford still has about 1,000 waste sites, about 500 facilities, and contaminated soil and ground. All pose a risk to workers, the public or the environment from radioactive or hazardous chemical material, the letter said.

The PUREX plant tunnel that partially collapsed earlier this month is just one example of the hazards remaining there, they told Perry.

The tunnel has been used for long-term storage of 780 cubic yards of waste, including equipment and tanks with highly radioactive contamination. The waste was set on rail cars that were pushed into the tunnel, then the tunnel was sealed.

The limited details released for the Office of River Protection spending said $713 million is proposed for tank farm work, $698 million for the vitrification plant and $93 million for a new facility planned to allow the vit plant to begin treating some waste as soon as 2022.

The new facility, the Low-Activity Waste Pretreatment System, was proposed to allow the plant to start treating low activity radioactive waste while work continues to address technical problems on the plant’s facilities that will handle high-level radioactive waste.

The plant is not scheduled to be fully operational for all waste until 2036 because of technical issues.

The Department of Energy began investigating the possibility of a leak within one of its double-shell waste storage tanks last week.

If waste is leaking from the inner shell of Tank AZ-101 into the space between its shells, the tank would not comply with state requirements and likely would have to be emptied at a cost of more than $100 million. Money for the work is not included in the proposed budget.

The overall budget request for DOE environmental cleanup of defense nuclear sites, which includes Hanford, increased to $5.5 billion, or $310 million more than current spending.

However, the administration moved some work from its National Nuclear Security Administration budget to the environmental cleanup budget, which accounts for most of the overall proposed budget increase.

A year ago, the administration of former President Barack Obama also proposed a cut to the Richland Operations Office, recommending a budget of $800 million compared to the $716 million proposed by the Trump administration. The proposed cut for the current fiscal year was partially restored by Congress under Murray’s leadership.

The Obama administration also proposed an increase to the Office of River Protection of $86 million, with the Trump administration now proposing an additional $5 million above that.

Hanford, near Richland in Eastern Washington, produced plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.

This story was originally published May 23, 2017 at 9:27 AM with the headline "Cut of $119M proposed for Hanford budget by Trump administration."