Hanford Board Reacts To Cuts

A legal agreement to clean up Hanford over 40 years is threatened by federal budget-slashers, members of the Hanford Advisory Board said Friday.

The 33-member panel warned the U.S. Department of Energy to keep its hands off the cleanup pact, called the Tri-Party Agreement.

The board was created last year by Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary to advise the DOE on nuclear cleanup issues.

Energy officials should take other cost-cutting actions first before hacking more than $4 billion over the next five years from DOE’s nuclear waste cleanup budget, the board said.

Hanford is expected to bear about 23 percent of cuts in nuclear waste cleanup programs nationwide that were announced last month by the White House.

President Clinton targeted the DOE for the deepest cuts of all federal departments.

The Spokesman-Review last November reported numerous examples of waste and overspending at Hanford, including bloated overhead, questionable employee perks and donothing jobs.

As many as 5,000 jobs and $600 million could be slashed from Hanford in 1996, Ron Izatt, deputy U.S. Department of Energy operations manager, told the board at its meeting this week in Kennewick.

The current work force is a record 18,700.

The proposed cuts in cleanup “demonstrate a disturbing disregard for legal commitments,” especially when actual cleanup accounts for only 10 percent of Hanford’s $2 billion annual budget, said acting board chairman Merilyn Reeves. Much of the Hanford money is spent trying to make sure the contamination doesn’t get any worse.

Reeves made the remarks in a Jan. 5 letter to Thomas Grumbly, DOE’s top cleanup official, and to O’Leary.

The letter also went to Gov. Mike Lowry, Washington Department of Ecology Director Mary Riveland, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Washington state and federal officials signed the Tri-Party Agreement in 1989. It has been renegotiated several times and stretched out to 40 years rather than the original 30, with a goal of cleaning up Hanford’s worst nuclear messes by 2028.

Only a year ago, DOE signed a revised agreement committing the agency to request full funding for TriParty Agreement goals.

Despite the board’s concerns, Izatt said DOE likely will seek once again to renegotiate parts of the pact.

DOE wants to postpone action on “low-risk” problems and “align needs with resources,” Izatt said.

He told the board that DOE is taking immediate action to cut Hanford overhead by $150 million to $200 million.

The board told Izatt to:

Stop using cleanup dollars to maintain shut-down defense nuclear facilities.

Honor the commitments in the Tri-Party Agreement or lose credibility with the public.

Achieve a promised $1 billion in cuts to enhance productivity by September 1998.

Re-examine staffing levels, reduce overhead, and look into privatizing some Hanford activities.

Stop “falsely blaming cleanup standards for running up Hanford costs.”

Cut back other DOE programs that aren’t mandated by the TriParty Agreement or other pacts.

Izatt said some cuts are expected to come from a recently implemented early retirement program.

Other savings may come from slashing up to half the computer services and engineering work; cutting medical benefits costs; reducing travel and professional development expenses; and contracting with outside agencies for services such as buses, fire protection and pension management.

Proposals also include limits on overtime for employees not directly involved in cleanup projects; freezing purchases of personal computers; and eliminating Hanford Environmental Health Foundation analytical laboratories because they duplicate work in other Hanford labs.