GAO: Nuke cleanup falling short

RICHLAND – The U.S. Department of Energy is unlikely to meet its commitment to save $50 billion on cleanup of nuclear sites nationwide, including Hanford nuclear reservation, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

The Energy Department announced the accelerated cleanup program in 2002, saying it would reduce costs by $50 billion, shorten the national cleanup schedule by 35 years and reduce risks to health and the environment. The agency estimated that most of the savings would come from speeding cleanup at the Hanford nuclear site, as well as sites in Idaho and South Carolina.

The largest cost savings was to occur at Hanford, where plutonium was produced for the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal for more than 40 years.

Progress was made nationwide in the early years of the new accelerated plan, the report said, but three of the most challenging and costly cleanup projects have fallen behind schedule.

Those projects include disposing of plutonium-contaminated waste, disposing of highly radioactive waste stored in underground tanks and closing those tanks.

Disposing of tank waste at Hanford and nuclear sites in Idaho and South Carolina was to account for nearly $30 billion of the Energy Department’s estimated savings under the accelerated cleanup plan.

At the three sites, a total of about 88 million gallons of waste remains to be treated and disposed of permanently. More than 53 million gallons of waste is stewing in 177 underground tanks at the Hanford site, less than 10 miles from the Columbia River.

The Energy Department had planned to have 13 of the 241 tanks at the three sites closed by now but has finished work on only two.

In addition, construction and engineering problems at a waste treatment plant at Hanford could delay operation of the plant by several years. The so-called vitrification plant is being designed and built to turn much of the tank waste into glasslike logs for permanent disposal in a nuclear waste repository.

The Energy Department also is behind schedule on plans to ship 142,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste to a permanent repository in New Mexico, the report said. That delay largely is due to problems in Idaho. Transuranic waste is highly radioactive and can take thousands of years to decay to safe levels.

Speeding cleanup itself was to have accounted for 42 percent of estimated savings. New and improved cleanup technologies would have accounted for 29 percent of the cleanup savings, but the report questioned whether that figure was realistic.

The remaining savings were to have come from new contracting strategies and revised cleanup agreements with state and federal regulators.

The Energy Department’s successes with the new accelerated cleanup were in areas where technologies and processes were well established, the report said. The report, requested by Congress and released last week, also praised the agency for nearly completing packaging of uranium and plutonium, including plutonium left at the Plutonium Finishing Plant at Hanford. It was “a highly dangerous activity due to the potential for a nuclear accident or worker exposure,” the report said.