Gregoire wants funds for Hanford

YAKIMA – Washington state officials are pressuring the federal government to ensure full funding for continuing cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, as President Bush prepares to release his 2007 budget request next week.

Their concerns center on funding for a waste treatment plant that will convert millions of gallons of radioactive waste into glasslike logs for long-term disposal. The Bush administration, and then Congress, reduced funding for plant construction last year, and Gov. Chris Gregoire threatened to sue after additional reductions were proposed.

Gregoire repeated that threat Monday, saying Hanford cleanup had reached a “critical point.”

“We’re either going to get the place cleaned up over there or we’re going to have a plume of contamination that’s going to reach the Columbia River and none of our children will see it cleaned up,” she said.

Gregoire said she remained hopeful the federal government would provide adequate funding, but added, “If that does not happen, we’re going to have to revisit whether we’re going to have to bring a lawsuit for their failure to live up to their agreement.”

The Hanford site was created in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, it is the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup costs expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion.

The so-called vitrification plan has long been considered the cornerstone of that cleanup despite countless problems. A report showed federal officials had underestimated the impact a severe earthquake might have on the plant, forcing a work stoppage on major portions of the plant and a review of its design. That review, coupled with rising prices on steel and other items, sent construction costs skyrocketing.

Federal officials have repeatedly refused to release a new cost estimate for the plant – currently tagged at more than $5.8 billion. Congress has estimated the latest problems could push the cost as high as $10 billion and delay the 2011 start by four years.

The deadline to have the plant operating already has been pushed back three times.

The Bush administration cited those concerns in its $626 million budget request for the plant for fiscal 2006, down from $690 million in previous years. A House-Senate budget committee later reduced that amount by another $100 million.

In addition, the Bush administration had proposed tapping the 2005 budget for $100 million, money that was not spent but was intended to be banked for construction costs in later years. That proposal was part of a $2.3 billion package of cuts to help pay for Hurricane Katrina relief.

Gregoire threatened to sue, and Congress elected not to tap the reserves.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman last week, U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings urged the federal government to restore full funding for the project. “The administration’s proposals to reduce funding last year were unjustifiable, serious errors that have compounded challenges” at the plant, wrote Hastings, a Republican. “It is critical that the administration help correct the impacts caused by their WTP funding reduction proposals last year by restoring funding to the $690 million level.”