Guest Opinion: No need to wait decades to move Hanford’s low activity waste

The National Academy of Sciences held its final public meeting on supplemental treatment of Hanford low activity waste in Richland a couple of weeks ago.

This was a meeting of importance to our Tri-Cities community.

The National Academy clearly pointed out that vitrification of Low Activity Waste (LAW) from the tank farms at Hanford would cost $36 billion; grouting the LAW would cost $8 billion (grouting is successfully underway at Savannah River tank farms); and a technology called steam reforming could cost up to $17 billion.

Grouting LAW could save taxpayers some $28 billion, as well as speeding up the process of LAW retrievals from the 177 Hanford tanks. Some 90% of the 56 million gallons of waste in the Hanford tanks is low-level waste.

However, at the public meeting, the Department of Ecology’s representatives said: “groundwater must be protected to the ‘good as glass’ standard.” The State does not want anything to derail DFLAW (Direct Feed Low Activity Waste) commitment, focus, and funding — the start of tank waste treatment was too long awaited.”

And yet, “as good as glass” is not defined in law, regulation, or statute; it is only a phrase that the Department of Ecology repeatedly puts forward as “their gold standard!” Regulators’ responsibility is to ensure the performance of the waste form ensures drinking water standards are met during the period of waste isolation.

Secondly, it appears that Ecology continues to be concerned about “groundwater” … and yet there is a Test Bed Initiative (TBI) funded in the FY2020 Congressional Budget, which would clearly demonstrate retrieving low-level tank waste, having it commercially treated/grouted at a fixed price, and shipped out of the State of Washington, thus alleviating any worries about continued Hanford groundwater contamination.

The biggest risk to groundwater is how long it will take to vitrify the waste, which is not planned to begin until after 2023 and take some 25 years with tanks that are deteriorating and already leaking. There is NO current viable schedule for removing waste from the tanks in 200-W area.

Department of Ecology staff also reported in the public meeting that “we have seen too many ideas that did not work out, resulting in long delays.”

To my knowledge there have only been two previous “ideas” relative to LAW at the Hanford Tank Farms — Bulk Vitrification, and Steam Reforming. Neither of these concepts resulted in any delays to the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP). WTP delays were caused by new earthquake analysis, or technical problems in the WTP design and by protracted permitting issues.

The Department of Energy’s recent estimate of Hanford’s life-cycle cleanup costs of between $323 BILLION, and $677 BILLION simply demands we find some way to reduce costs and shorten the time it will take to clean up Hanford.

DOE and the Department of Ecology should be looking at all technologies that can reduce cost and speed removal of 90% of the waste in the 177 tanks at Hanford.

The Government Accountability Office and the National Academy of Sciences both point out that grouting Hanford’s low-level tank waste would be 1/5th of the cost of vitrification.

A facility in Texas is licensed to accept such treated LAW, removing it from Hanford and the State of Washington. DOE should immediately submit the permit for retrieval, pre-treatment, stabilization and out of state disposal of the TBI project’s 2000 gallons low level waste from Hanford tanks while DFLAW continues towards a future startup date.

Our Tri-Cities community should demand the Department of Ecology and DOE work together to remove 90% of the waste from the aging and deteriorating tanks — as quickly, safely and at the least cost possible. There is no need to wait decades longer for “as good as glass” when other options now exist.

This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 12:43 PM with the headline "Guest Opinion: No need to wait decades to move Hanford’s low activity waste."