Hanford

No appeal of new Hanford consent decree deadlines

Tri-City Herald
The Low-Activity Waste Facility at the Hanford vitrification plant will treat waste first. Here, employees move pieces of metal platform that major equipment will be set upon. The equipment will be lowered by crane through a hatch above the 48-foot elevation.
The Low-Activity Waste Facility at the Hanford vitrification plant will treat waste first. Here, employees move pieces of metal platform that major equipment will be set upon. The equipment will be lowered by crane through a hatch above the 48-foot elevation. Mike Hart Courtesy Bechtel National

Neither Washington state nor the Department of Energy filed an appeal of the federal court ruling setting new consent decree milestones for Hanford work.

Deadline for appealing the decision passed at midnight Tuesday.

U.S. Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson in April set new court-enforced deadlines that require DOE to start treating some waste at the Hanford vitrification plant in 2023 and have all parts of the plant operating in 2036. The previous deadline, which DOE cannot meet in part because of technical issues, required the plant to be fully operating in 2022.

The judge declined to adopt a DOE proposal for near-automatic deadline extensions in case DOE encounters more technical issues or has other issues that cause delays.

She did not require DOE to begin building more waste storage tanks as its double-shell tanks reach capacity, as the state had requested.

But if DOE misses a 2020 deadline related to emptying leak-prone single-shell tanks, the state may again ask the court to require DOE to build more double-shell tanks.

This story was originally published May 11, 2016 at 6:42 PM with the headline "No appeal of new Hanford consent decree deadlines."

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