Washington State Dept. of Ecology: Happy birthday, TPA: The Tri-Party Agreement, which governs Hanford cleanup, turns 30

Nearly 30 years ago, state and federal agencies forged a landmark agreement to apply environmental regulations to the Hanford site. The state of Washington joined with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to negotiate and sign the Tri-Party Agreement, or TPA.

Looking back, looking to the future

This 30th birthday is a good time to reflect on the TPA’s accomplishments, and to look at the challenges ahead.

I tell new employees that the TPA includes three agreements in one. It’s an agreement between two federal agencies – Energy and the EPA – to clean up contaminated soil and water. It’s an agreement between Energy and Ecology to manage waste. And it’s a “get along” agreement among three.

The get-along agreement makes the agencies talk to each other every month to work out differing perspectives and priorities. It also recognizes the value of public participation in Hanford decision-making and sets up regular discussions between the agencies and the public.

A dynamic agreement

One big reason for the success of the TPA is that it allows changes to add more work. In 1989, Hanford was actively manufacturing plutonium using nuclear facilities like the N Reactor, the PUREX Plant, the Plutonium Finishing Plant, and hundreds of smaller support buildings. Those key facilities came into the TPA in 1995.

The TPA originally listed a few hundred locations where waste had leaked, spilled or been intentionally disposed of. Today, we count more than 3,500 suspect waste sites. Those buildings and waste sites had the potential to seep into groundwater and threaten the Columbia River. TPA schedules led to removal of more than 17 million tons of contaminated soil and demolition debris, mostly from the shoreline, that is now more securely stored in a double-lined landfill in central Hanford.

Focus on the river

Since its birth, the TPA was intended to protect the Columbia River. Its first major success was to shut off the discharge of millions of gallons of contaminated liquid effluent to the soil. This, along with pumping and treating polluted groundwater, helped shrink the contaminated aquifer from a staggering 100 square miles to 50 square miles.

One of the challenges ahead is to “put a bow on it” by finishing the remaining work along the Columbia River. That includes the highly contaminated 324 Building – just 1,000 feet from the river and less than a mile from Richland city limits. It will be an expensive and difficult project.

Cleaning the 200 Area

The central part of Hanford, called the 200 Area, holds the greatest remaining challenges.

▪  PUREX, among hundreds of contaminated buildings that have waited 20 years for removal.

▪  The partial collapse of PUREX Tunnel 1’s roof, which put an exclamation point on the dangers posed by aging Hanford infrastructure.

▪  177 underground tanks filled with 56 million gallons of nuclear waste.

▪  More than 10,500 aging waste containers in storage, and another 12,000 containers yet to be retrieved from unlined trenches.

The land after cleanup

The next 30 years will also challenge us to use the Hanford landscape wisely as it’s cleaned up and becomes available to many competing uses. Area tribes, local communities, the Hanford Reach National Monument and others all have ties to Hanford. In addition, within Hanford’s boundaries, two commercial activities not covered by the TPA – the Columbia Generating Station and the U.S. Ecology low-level radioactive waste disposal site – will both finish their licensed operating periods and close down.

The TPA has proved its worth over the past 30 years. I expect it to be equally vital to ongoing cleanup for the next 30.