75 Years of Hanford: Open to Interpretations

“The greatest immediate need is to recognize the importance of factoring the future into present decision making” — National Academy of Public Administration.

During the autumn of 1944, the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor (B Reactor) and chemical reprocessing plant (T Plant) came online to produce weapon-grade plutonium at the top-secret Hanford Site. These plants forever altered the strategies of war.

The ability to accelerate bringing these facilities online was underpinned by integrating targeted science with applied technology. This involved a billion-fold scale-up between laboratory and full scale plutonium production.

Hanford produced two-thirds (60 tons) of the plutonium used in the United States for making nuclear weapons. This tonnage equates to 9,000 atomic bombs each having the explosive power of the “Fat Man” weapon dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945.

Hanford facilities also generated large quantities of radioactive and chemical waste. Some was released into the environment, exposing workers or those living downstream or downwind. The rest was stored, buried, or discharged underground.

The last of Hanford’s nine reactors shut down in 1987. The last of five reprocessing plants closed in 1990. But major environmental problems continued.

Today, approximately 330 million curies of radioactivity and 400,000 tons of chemical waste remains onsite. The need to significantly reduce Hanford waste generation and improve disposal/storage practices was reported to the Atomic Energy Commission as early as 1948. However over the decades, waste handling remained nearly unchanged and frequently unquestioned.

By the 1950s and 1960s, America’s post-war middle class no longer accepted environmental pollution as an unavoidable consequence of industrial growth.

By the 1970s Congress passed a host of environmental legislation. Hanford and other Department of Energy (DOE) sites took exception to implementing laws primarily directed at the private industry. Nonetheless, DOE complied with these laws although the sites contained nuclear materials and waste mixes that only existed outside the private sector.

DOE signed the Tri-Party Agreement in 1989 — 30 years ago. Roughly $45 billion dollars has been spent at Hanford to date. But only 30-50 percent of this pays directly for site restoration.

The remainder of the annual budget of $2.2 billion supports management, site services and maintenance/monitoring of an aging infrastructure. The remaining costs are currently estimated at $110 billion over the next 70 years, though these plans are laced with significant uncertainty.

For example, the absence of geologic storage for containing defense packaged high-level waste and nuclear material could push Hanford into becoming a temporary or long term de-facto repository site.

Perhaps Hanford’s greatest challenge is to ensure long-term funding for cleanup and innovative problem solving that targets cost, schedule, and risk reduction strategies. Hanford sometimes appears to manage problems as if faced with unlimited funds. Requesting an annual budget jump of $2 billion to satisfy Tri-Party Agreement milestones is one example. A $4 billion Hanford budget would pour nearly 60 percent of DOE Headquarters’ restoration funds into just one of its sites — Hanford. Is it not time to plan with greater realism?

Of the 134 sites DOE once labeled as contaminated, most are restored — especially those of smaller size and restoration complexity. Three exceptions include Hanford, Savanna River, and Oak Ridge. During the 1980s, the prevailing strategy voiced by many for gaining increased funding was to shift cleanup funds from smaller sites that had been remediated to larger and more challenging sites. This approach did not work.

Fewer sites translate into dwindling Congressional support. How long can we expect Hanford’s annual budget of $2.2B to remain untouched when Congressional support is dwindling? What defensible strategies are needed to reduce costs while preserving remediation progress?

These are the kinds of questions that must be answered if we expect continued political support and funding for Hanford cleanup and future use of Hanford land. Otherwise, Hanford could well become a defacto nuclear waste storage “solution.”

This story was originally published January 18, 2019 at 12:27 PM.