Report faults Hanford contractor, DOE

YAKIMA – A contractor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation failed to adequately analyze the economic benefits of using a still-standing building to dispose of some nuclear waste, the U.S. Department of Energy’s inspector general said Tuesday in a new report.

The Energy Department, which manages the site, also failed to provide sufficient oversight to ensure that the cost study was accurate and complete. As a result, the agency may not realize savings ranging between $17 million and $500 million, the report concluded.

The audit centered on the Canyon Disposition Initiative, which was created by the Energy Department in 1996 to investigate how best to decommission five chemical separation plants at the Hanford site.

Some officials believed the plants, also called canyons, could be suited for long-term waste disposal, with concrete walls between 3 and 5 feet thick and foundations between 6 and 8 feet thick.

Preliminary estimates indicated that using the canyons for waste disposal could significantly reduce both disposal costs and the need to build additional waste disposal sites at Hanford, the report said.

The Energy Department hired Bechtel Hanford, a contractor at the site, to evaluate the feasibility and potential cost savings of using one such canyon, U-Plant, for long-term waste disposal, the report said.