‘Serious disappointment.’ WA state is politicizing massive Hanford cleanup, Newhouse says

Washington state officials are playing politics with the environmental cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation, Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., told the nation’s new energy secretary.

He recently invited new Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to visit the Hanford site adjoining the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington and used the invitation to criticize a letter sent to her by the Washington state Department of Ecology and the state attorney general the day after her U.S. Senate confirmation vote.

“I must express my serious disappointment,” Newhouse said.

The state letter asking her to rescind a Trump-era rule allowing a new interpretation of the definition of high level radioactive waste was also signed by the Yakama Nation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Hanford Challenge and Columbia Riverkeeper.

“Not only was it unprecedented and seriously lacking in judgment for these officials to sign onto a letter alongside special interest groups, the letter also purports to attack the scientific grounds of the proposal in a misleading and false manner,” Newhouse said.

The state said the rule lays the groundwork for the Department of Energy to abandon significant amounts of radioactive waste at the Hanford site close to the Columbia River.

It would create a long-term risk of harm to the residents of the Pacific Northwest and the natural resources critical to the region, the state letter said.

High level radioactive waste must be sent to a deep geological repository, but DOE would have more options if it can reclassify some waste that by definition is high level to a category with less stringent disposal requirements.

DOE would do that by determining it does not exceed certain radionuclide concentrations for low level waste or does not need to be disposed of in a deep geological repository, such as the one proposed at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

Previously high level waste could be reclassified but under a more involved process that relies on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Tri-Cities opposition

The position taken in the state’s letter “does not speak for nor represent the best interests of the Tri-Cities,” Newhouse said.

“They and others believe the HLW (high level waste) interpretation has the potential to make their community safer by treating tank waste sooner,” Newhouse said. “The interpretation could also significantly reduce tank waste treatment costs, which would allow those savings to be reinvested in other important cleanup activities at Hanford.”

Tri-Cities area leaders have made numerous attempts to share their perspective with the Democratic governor’s office, the Democratic attorney general’s office and the Department of Ecology, but state leaders still went forward with a “knee-jerk letter” without consulting the local community, Newhouse said.

Cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation should be a nonpartisan priority for the nation, he said.

The state letter tarnished and jeopardized what should be the start of a productive working relationship with new DOE leadership, Newhouse said.

The federal government is spending about $2.5 billion annually to clean up massive amounts of radioactive and other hazardous chemical waste and contamination at the 580-square-mile site.

Hanford was used during World War II and the Cold War to produce about two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

The Hanford Lifecycle report issued in 2019 estimated taxpayers will need to spend $323 billion to $677 billion more to finish cleanup of the site.

Local supporters of the new waste reclassification interpretation are concerned that Congress will lose interest in cleaning up the site long before that much money is spent.

This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 8:36 AM.