Delay at Hanford is the wrong answer | Guest Opinion

As a recent Tri-City Herald Editorial pointed out, the Trump Administrations’ FY2021 budget request for the Department of Energy’s cleanup program is woefully inadequate. As a result of this reduced budget request, DOE’s proposal to delay work on the 324 Bldg., Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility (WESF), and groundwater pump-and-treat is grossly irresponsible and unacceptable.

In GAO report 17-317, The Government Accountability Office states that, “since 2011, under the current program and schedule, DOE’s Environmental Management liabilities have increased $4 for every $1 invested in cleanup due to delays caused by non-compliant budgets and regulatory challenges.”

This is one result of budget allocations that fall short of funding needed to legally comply with DOE’s cleanup programs. One-third of the DOE Environmental Management budget comes to Hanford. Delays clearly increase life-cycle Hanford cleanup costs and liabilities!

The current FY2020 Hanford budget for cleanup is nearly $2.6 billion. The Administration’s FY2021 request for $1.9 billion is $700 million less than the current budget, which was already non-compliant for DOE’s planned cleanup. A DOE compliant budget for FY2021 would be nearly $4 billion. This situation prolongs cleanup, drives up costs, and delays site reuse. It also presents a real risk the government may decide in the future to just isolate the site and not fund further cleanup as a result of untenable costs.

A good solution to reduce Hanford’s ever-increasing budget requirements has been clearly described in reports by the National Academies of Sciences, by a consortium of National Laboratories, and in a GAO Report to Congress.

The NAS’s “Final Review of the Study on Supplemental Treatment Approaches of Low-Activity Waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation” and the Lab’s “Analysis of Approaches to Supplemental Treatment of Low-Activity Waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation,” clearly recommend alternative treatment methods such as grouting and offsite disposal in a licensed facility. These reports, as well as the GAO report to Congress, clearly state that grout would be five times less costly, safer, and decades faster than turning the low-level waste into glass.

Grout is being successfully used to treat low-level waste derived from Savannah River nuclear waste tanks with hundreds of millions of dollars in savings. Hanford should take advantage of what DOE is already doing at Savannah River.

In addition, $10 million is specifically identified in this year’s Congressional budget for phase 2 of a demonstration project to evaluate the commercial treatment and disposal of 2,000 gallons of low-level waste derived from the Hanford tanks. The project would result in pretreated low-level waste from a Hanford tank being stabilized (grouted) commercially off-site at a fixed cost, then shipped out of Washington State for final disposal in a licensed low-level waste facility in Texas.

Phase 1 of this project successfully tested the off-site treatment, transport and disposal concept on 3 gallons of Hanford low-level waste. This commercial demonstration must continue in order to prove the concept and establish the method as a supplement capability to the more costly Waste Treatment Plant. Of the 56 million gallons of waste in the 177 tanks, nearly 90 percent (about 50 million gallons) are low-activity waste.

If vitrification (glassification) is used to treat low-level waste, it is expected to cost more than $500 per gallon. And, an additional, higher capacity low level waste vitrification plant would have to be constructed soon to meet the high-level waste mission planned schedule. According to the reports, grouting AND disposal of low-level waste costs less than $150 per gallon with no liquid waste returned to the tank farms which is an issue with vitrification.

The difference in total low-level waste treatment cost is at least $35 billion less for grout. And, as reported by the National Academies of Science, grouting the low-level waste can be done decades sooner than glass. A reduced time schedule would result in even greater cost savings that could be used to clean up other areas of Hanford that present great risk to the public and the environment. This could also enable parts of the site to be turned over for beneficial reuse and greater regional employment.

DOE’s recent strategy announcement to delay cleanup of areas of great public risk is unconscionable. The most contaminated facility at Hanford, the 324 Bldg., is only a half-mile from Richland City Limits and some 300 yards from the Columbia River. Removal of the 1,936 capsules of strontium and cesium stored underwater in a facility is urgent because of concerns about the structural and earthquake integrity of the concrete walls holding the water and capsules. Putting off the risk mitigation program for canyon facilities like PUREX for another 10 years could also be disastrous.

Further delay should not be an option. DOE must concentrate on lower cost tank waste treatment options and being able to use the resulting savings to fund other higher priority environmental cleanup work throughout the site. Continuing to pour all available funds into a costly low level tank waste vitrification mission will result in other, more pressing and costly environmental problems to develop similar to the PUREX tunnel collapse.

We are extremely fortunate to have the strong support of our Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and our House Representative Dan Newhouse on the nation’s obligation to clean up Hanford.

Our congressional delegation needs this community’s support. And we need Congressional support to direct DOE, and encourage the Department of Ecology, to use the readily available and less costly cleanup methods that have been recommended by the science community.

I encourage our community to speak up. DOE, the Department of Ecology and our Congressional representatives need to hear what we think is important for Hanford cleanup with limited funding. We live here!

▪  Brian Vance Manager, Office of River Protection U.S. Department of Energy P.O. Box 450, MSIN H6-60 Richland, WA 99352 Brian.T.Vance@orp.doe.gov.

▪  Alex Smith Program Manager Washington State Department of Ecology 3100 Port of Benton Blvd. Richland, WA 99354 Alex.smith@ecy.wa.gov.

▪  Senator Patty Murray, patty_murray@murray.senate.gov.

▪  Senator Maria Cantwell, Maria_Cantwell@cantwell.senate.gov.

▪  Representative Dan Newhouse dnewhouse@mail.house.gov.