Hanford panel opposes delays

Long delays in emptying leak-prone underground tanks at Hanford and treating their radioactive wastes don’t appear to be justified, according to the Hanford Advisory Board.

The Washington State Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency entered high-level negotiations with the Department of Energy this spring as it became clear that key deadlines in the Tri-Party Agreement would not be met, particularly those linked to the Waste Treatment Plant.

The Waste Treatment Plant, or vitrification plant, is not expected to begin treating millions of gallons of high-level radioactive wastes now held in underground tanks until eight years past the Tri-Party Agreement deadline.

“Does an eight-year delay in the Waste Treatment Plant justify a 22-year delay in emptying leaky single-shell tanks?” asked Gerald Pollet, who represents Heart of America Northwest on the advisory board. His statement came Friday during the board’s November meeting.

The three agencies are discussing extending the deadline for emptying wastes from single-shell tanks from 2018 to 2040. The vitrification plant was supposed to start treating waste already transferred to sturdier tanks in four years, which would free space in the newer tanks to allow more emptying of older tanks.

The agencies also are considering delaying completion of treatment of wastes and cleanup of the tank farms until 2052, which is 24 years past the current deadline of 2028.

Those delays could jeopardize money for Hanford cleanup, the board said.

“Congress may view such agreements for lengthy delays as a tacit admission that the urgency claimed for these efforts was false,” the board wrote in advice sent to the negotiating agencies.

In the past Congress has repeatedly given Hanford more money than DOE requested if the dollars were necessary to meet legal cleanup deadlines, the board said.

The board is concerned the delays have more to do with anticipated budget shortfalls than technical obstacles. DOE’s tentative budget will fall billions of dollars short of paying for required work over the next decade, the board said.

One of the concessions regulators would require for extending cleanup deadlines is a new life-cycle report due next fall that would give a complete look at the cleanup work to be done and its cost and timing.

Negotiations on major schedule delays should be deferred until the EPA, the state and the public have seen a life-cycle report voluntarily prepared by DOE, the board said.

The three agencies also are looking at an accelerated schedule for addressing contaminated groundwater at Hanford and protecting groundwater from further contamination.

But the advisory board said it should broaden the scope of negotiations to include more issues. That includes bringing no more waste to Hanford until waste already there is cleaned up or contained.

The board also wants the agencies to add deadlines for cleanup of certain types of waste not yet fully addressed by the Tri-Party Agreement.

These could cover deadlines for cleanup of reprocessing canyons, deadlines for cleanup of reactors that are being allowed to radioactively cool for 75 years and deadlines for digging up certain long-lived wastes.

The board’s advice makes a push for an early start to low-activity waste treatment at the vitrification plant, which will not be ready to treat high-level waste until 2019.

In the long term, the board favors being prepared to expand the vitrification plant to treat more low-activity waste rather than relying on a supplemental technology, such as bulk vitrification. The main vitrification plant is designed to treat only 50 percent of the low-activity waste now held in underground tanks.

Too little time likely remains to test bulk vitrification if a treatment plant for a supplemental technology is to be operating by 2019 or 2021, the board said. It called for the Tri-Party Agreement to require that DOE start construction in 2014 on expanding capacity for the main plant to have it operating in 2019.