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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Time Is True Test Of Cleanup Effort

The government has changed the paperwork, jolted the bureaucracy and redefined the goals. But out in the hot sands of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, some of the most dangerous garbage ever produced still simmers, corrodes and seeps toward the blue waters of the nearby Columbia River.

Maybe this time, the hiring of a new custodian will lead to actual improvement in Hanford’s radioactive mess.

There is reason for hope, and there is reason for concern, as well.

It was probably to the good when the Department of Energy replaced the contractor assigned to Hanford cleanup, switching from Westinghouse to a team of companies led by Fluor Daniel, a California-based engineering and construction firm. Westinghouse helped spend $9 billion on “cleanup” since 1989 and the money went to studies, public relations, litigation - everything but change in the status of the waste. The contractor cleaned up, the environment didn’t.

It is true that the engineering challenges are so large, so untried, so tangled in regulatory strings and so controversial at every turn that progress is hard to make.

It also is true that the old contract tolerated ineffectiveness. Westinghouse got paid, and got bonuses, without regard for the success of its work. Bonuses were based merely on how much it spent.

The new contract, according to the Energy Department, will pay the new contractors only if they achieve results specified in the contract’s terms. That really is a good change, giving the contractor a motive to perform.

Still, the people of the Northwest may wish to reserve their judgment, while time and analysis reveal whether the results required in that 4-1/2-inch-thick document lead to adequate cleanup and stabilization of the waste. So costly are these chores that some in federal government may want to do the minimum and walk away. That would be foolish; dangerous relics of nuclear technology, all around the world, cry out for the cleanup methods Hanford can develop.

Fluor Daniel has experience in nuclear cleanup - and its record, regrettably, is stained. The Cincinnati Enquirer has reported serious safety violations and scandalous financial practices in Fluor Daniel’s management of a uranium plant in Fernald, Ohio. The only consolation in that disturbing news is the fact that scandal at federal nuclear installations has been universal.

Furthermore, while top administrators at Hanford will change, most of the workers will remain the same. Many of those employees have longed for the improvements new management might bring; others have persecuted whistleblowers and contributed to the waste.

The region can only hope the new contract gives Hanford’s new steward a sufficient incentive to manage for progress as well as profit.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board