Concerns raised about delaying Hanford deadlines

Many of the people who have advocated for cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation will be dead by the time work covered in a proposed set of changes to legally binding deadlines for Hanford environmental cleanup is completed, said Susan Leckband at a meeting Wednesday night to discuss the changes.

“That’s disturbing,” she said. Some of the proposed new deadlines for cleanup work would not be set until 2026, with actual cleanup work to be done after that.

The Department of Energy and its regulators — the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington state Department of Ecology — held the first of four meetings to discuss proposed changes Wednesday in Richland. About 50 people attended.

The Richland Operations Office, responsible for all Hanford cleanup other than addressing the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks, has spent much of its budget in the last decade on Hanford cleanup close to the Columbia River.

That has caused delays in its cleanup work in central Hanford, which has about 400 buildings and about 1,500 waste sites where contaminated material was disposed of in the ground or liquids spilled or leaked into the ground.

With much of the cleanup completed along the Columbia River, the focus is turning to setting new deadlines that the government agencies believe are realistic and achievable given expected annual budgets of $1 billion to $1.2 billion for the Richland Operations Office.

Plans call for completing investigations and screening possible methods for cleanup for many of those buildings and waste sites by 2026. The current deadline is in 2016.

“That’s a very long delay, a decade. People’s commitments change in a decade. The agencies change,” said Leckband, who was on the meeting agenda to give the community’s perspective as a former Hanford worker. She also is the past chairwoman of the Hanford Advisory Board.

Deadlines for three large processing plants — PUREX, REDOX and B Plant —would be considered separately. DOE’s first deadline for them would be to submit dates in 2026 for when they would be required to be cleaned up.

Leckband said she is not as concerned about delaying cleanup of the processing plants because the large concrete buildings are stable and will be stable for many years to come.

She also has some concerns about some changed deadlines for some of the last and most difficult projects left along the Columbia River, including for the 324 Building which sits over a highly radioactive spill. The deadline to clean up the spill and and tear down the building would be extended from fall 2018 to fall 2021.

“The 324 Building you could stand in it and spit in the Columbia River,” she said. “If that leaks into the river, it affects thousands of lives. It’s dangerous and I think that really takes priority.”

Earlier in the day the Hanford Advisory Board discussed the proposed deadline changes.

Several board members said they were concerned about leaving some deadlines undetermined. For instance, cleaning up waste sites and most buildings in central Hanford was required to be completed in 2024 and now those dates will be determined after more is known about the sites.

Dennis Faulk, EPA Hanford program manager, said cleanup of Hanford along the Columbia River will take 30 years total, and the coming central Hanford cleanup will require at least as much work.

“Based on history, do I really want to set a date 30 to 40 years in the future to complete this work?” he asked. “Or do I actually want to have more firm schedules based on all the information I collect over the next 10 years to set it?”

Additional meetings are planned at 7 p.m. Nov. 17 in Seattle; 7 p.m. Nov. 18 in Portland; and 6 p.m. Nov. 19 in Hood River, with more information posted on the calendar at www.hanford.gov.

Written comments may be submitted until Dec. 11. Email Kristen.Skopeck@rl.doe.gov or mail Kristen Skopeck, DOE Richland Operations Office, P.O. Box 550 MSIN A7-75, Richland, WA 99352.

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 9:12 PM with the headline "Concerns raised about delaying Hanford deadlines."