Ecology cares – deeply – about Hanford clean-up, and the Tri-City community | Guest Opinion

We have a simple mission at Ecology: Protect, preserve, and enhance the environment for current and future generations. To us, these aren’t just words — they are a solemn promise that we take seriously. That we take to heart.

And that’s why a recent opinion piece in this newspaper was so off the mark. It was not only riddled with errors, but also wrongly and cynically asserts that our agency uses its authority as a “crutch” to prop up outdated plans to clean up the Hanford nuclear waste site. It questioned the exercise of our regulatory authority at Hanford and even went so far as to imply that some of our individual staff members are at risk of personal liability. In fact, it names one of our most knowledgeable, longest-serving, most dedicated staff members — a person we know to be of the highest integrity and most principled intentions.

But perhaps the unstated, underlying message cuts deepest — that Ecology doesn’t care about how Hanford is cleaned up, so long as the cleanup is conducted according to rigid, unyielding, bureaucratic rules.

That has not been the case in the past, and I can assure you that is not and never will be my approach.

We do our work with attention to detail because we care about the quality of the clean-up at Hanford, and the long-term benefit for the Tri-Cities community.

The op-ed tries to push a narrative that we aren’t concerned about the local community’s needs or desires. That could not be further from the truth.

Worse, this false narrative ignores the true heart of the problem at Hanford: that the federal government refuses to even seek the funds it needs to do the job right.

The U.S. Department of Energy, going back for more than a decade, has been asking Congress for only about two-thirds of the money it would need to meet its legal and moral obligations at Hanford. This year, Hanford managers needed $3.4 billion to meet its clean-up deadlines. Energy asked for $1.9 billion. Last year, they needed $3.3 billion. Energy asked for $2.1 billion.

Energy says it’s unrealistic to expect full funding for Hanford.

We say: If you don’t ask, you won’t get.

Meanwhile, Energy is never shy about proposing short-cuts and half measures, contending that it’s not possible to do it right — so we should just do what’s expedient.

The unalterable truth is this: For nearly half a century, the state of Washington did its part to support our nation’s international imperatives to build and maintain strategic nuclear weaponry. Once that mission was achieved, the federal government — in legal, binding agreements and in federal court consent decrees — has repeatedly acknowledged its obligation to clean up the contamination left behind.

By far the largest barrier to achieving that goal has been inadequate funding. Something Energy has given up on.

But safe cleanup of the Hanford site is not optional.

Ecology has always been and continues to be committed partners in the shared goal of cleaning up Hanford to a level that meets environmental standards and — more to the point — that we can justify to our children and their children. A level of remediation that we can be proud of. That won’t leave us kicking the dirt with a resigned shrug: ‘Sorry kids, it’s the best we could do.’

Yet, as year after year the Hanford budget request falls well short of what’s needed to meet cleanup deadlines – despite the fact that Congress annually recognizes the inadequacy of Energy’s budget requests and adds significantly more money — the inevitable result is that Energy misses its deadlines, projects get pushed out, the cleanup timeline gets extended by decades, and the overall cost of a proper cleanup grows exponentially.

To be clear: oversight by the state of Washington and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are not primary or even significant contributors to Hanford’s delays. It’s almost all about the money.

Instead of asking for adequate funds, Energy’s response has been to advance solutions that fall well short of the legal and moral obligations the federal government has made to this state and the people of this region. Ecology is committed to making this appeal for more funding, and stands ready to be a partner in this effort. We call on Energy to do the same.

This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 9:59 AM with the headline "Ecology cares – deeply – about Hanford clean-up, and the Tri-City community | Guest Opinion."