Letter: ‘LAW’ vitrification good for state, bad for taxpayers
On Oct. 12, the TCH front page article was, “World’s largest nuclear waste melters in place at Hanford.” This article indicated that the DOE contractor will be paid a profit of $8.55 million for this job.
This profit payment will result in the contractor paying business and occupation (B&O) taxes of over $400,000 to the state of Washington. This appears to be a win/win for DOE, the contractor and the state. However, the U.S. tax payers are the big losers in this deal, because none of these costs are necessary if the Low Activity Waste (LAW) was grouted.
The recent GAO Report No. GAO-17-306 stated that the DOE Savannah River Site estimated that it will save about $55 billion by grouting its LAW versus vitrification. If Hanford continues the LAW vitrification project, the tax payers will pay the state a minimum of $275 million for B&O taxes. Because the state will receive B&O tax on all costs incurred by DOE contractors and subcontractors doing work at Hanford, the state had a conflict of interest in the past TPA negotiations.
Because of the B&O tax conflict, the DOE should immediately stop the LAW vitrification project and renegotiate the TPA to allow grouting LAW.
Garry Amidan, West Richland
This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Letter: ‘LAW’ vitrification good for state, bad for taxpayers."