Governors: Congressional recommendations would hurt Hanford cleanup

Recommendations in a study ordered by Congress focus on cutting costs at Hanford and other nuclear cleanup sites at the expense of the best protection of the environment and people, according to the governors of Washington and Oregon.

The recommendations would reduce states’ authority and legal standing for cleanup projects that affect their residents, according to a letter to congressional leaders signed by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Thursday.

“We are as frustrated as anyone by the slow pace and the high cost of cleanup at Hanford and other (Department of Energy) sites,” the governors said in their letter. “Yet abrogating states’ rights is not the solution.”

They asked leaders of key congressional subcommittees not to endorse recommendations made by the Omnibus Review Committee, which was organized by the Consortium for Risk Evaluation and Stakeholder Participation, or CRESP.

The legislation authorizing spending at Hanford and other cleanup sites this year was accompanied by language directing DOE to analyze how effectively it addresses risk at sites such as Hanford. DOE asked CRESP, a consortium of universities, to lead the effort.

“The report fails at this task by instead focusing primarily on ways to reduce costs rather than reducing risks to public health and safety,” the letter said.

It creates the potential for less protective cleanup at sites that still pose enormous threats to human health and the environment, the letter said. The recommendations, if enacted, would critically affect cleanup of Hanford with corresponding impacts to the Columbia River.

The committee report said recommendations are intended to effectively protect human health across the DOE cleanup complex within the constraints of less money available than in the recent past.

Money might be spent eliminating lower risks because of different regulatory approaches at different sites and requirements such as those imposed at Hanford by a court-enforced consent decree and the legally binding Tri-Party Agreement, the report said.

It is a “complex report about a complex set of questions that Congress wanted answer(ed),” said Michael Greenberg, chairman of the Omnibus Risk Review Committee and faculty dean of the Rutgers Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

The committee will listen to questions and comments from a variety of sources, likely including Congress, and then make full comments in response, he said.

The states provided comments before the report was finished and some of their ideas were incorporated, he said. He is pleased the Northwest governors have taken note of the finished report, he said.

The report recommends making sure cleanup goals match projected use of areas. However, some Hanford observers are advocating for cleanup standards that would provide safe conditions if land use changes in the future.

The report proposes Congress reclassify some high level radioactive waste, which could allow more waste to remain in the bottom of Hanford’s underground waste storage tanks. It would be mixed with grout rather than removed and turned into a stable glass form as now required.

The report recommends Congress establish a standing task force led by federal officials to help DOE promote consistency in addressing risk across its sites. The task force would weigh in on setting cleanup priorities, allocating money, flexibility in legal deadlines, dispute resolution, choices in cleanup approaches and other activities that impact cost effectiveness and risk-based decision making.

The report also recommends that Congress pass legislation to remove the option of court-enforced consent decrees to enforce legal agreements. The state of Washington is asking a federal court for enforcement of a 2010 consent decree that DOE agreed to after failing to meet cleanup requirements it had earlier agreed to in the Tri-Party Agreement.

Such litigation skews cleanup priorities by requiring limited money be spent on work picked by states rather than based on risk and competing cleanup needs nationwide, the report said.

Disputes would be settled by a panel of independent experts, whose decisions would be binding, to provide a national perspective on cleanup decisions.

The Washington and Oregon governors say such recommendations call into question state authority over cleanup.

Washington negotiated and signed the Tri-Party Agreement in 1992 with DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency “precisely because DOE had clearly demonstrated that, without active state involvement and oversight, compliance with environmental laws at Hanford would not be achieved,” the letter said.

The task force would specifically exclude states from critical decision-making and legal processes, including the option of federal court intervention when DOE fails to meet its obligations, the governors said.

The recommendations also discount state regulation as being excessive, costly and not properly vetted, despite the legal authority given to the states, they said.

For instance, the state authorization to carry out Resource Conservation and Recovery Act requirements on behalf of the federal government is the only clear legal requirement that forces DOE to remove and treat high level radioactive waste not held in underground tanks, the governors said.

The letter was sent to Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and the subcommittee’s ranking member, Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio. In the Senate, it was sent to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and the subcommittee’s ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

All four represent states with DOE sites that have been cleaned up or are undergoing cleanup.

Washington and Oregon are developing a detailed evaluation of the report to send to DOE and congressional subcommittees.

This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 8:32 PM with the headline "Governors: Congressional recommendations would hurt Hanford cleanup."