Extensions sought for Hanford cleanup projects

RICHLAND – Federal officials are asking for more time to finish cleaning up the central part of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, saying the federal budget requires that cleanup work must be done first along the Columbia River.

A letter requesting extensions on 23 cleanup deadlines was sent Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy to the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Ecology, the Tri-City Herald reported.

Hanford is the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site with a legacy of producing fuel for atomic bombs dating from the 1940s. Cleanup deadlines are part of the Tri-Party Agreement among the three agencies.

A dozen of the 23 deadlines are at risk because work with solid waste at the central portion of the reservation will slow as money is shifted to cleanup near the Columbia River.

Those deadlines include work to retrieve temporarily buried transuranic waste – typically debris contaminated with plutonium – and treatment and preparation of the waste for shipment to a repository in New Mexico.

The remaining 11 deadlines involve studies required by law of plans to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater in central Hanford. The contamination was left from the release of radioactive material into the ground after the processing of irradiated fuel rods to obtain plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Rather than the $1.4 billion requested last year for Hanford cleanup, the budget for fiscal 2009 provides $983 million, with a likelihood of some supplemental funding, for the Energy Department’s Richland Operations Office.

The Bush administration had proposed even less.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., issued a statement accusing the administration of routinely “shortchanging Hanford cleanup efforts. Year after year, this administration introduced budgets that failed to live up to the critical milestones set forth by the Tri-Party Agreement, and it’s now clear that they will leave office with significant work left undone.”

The operations office will concentrate on cleanup along the river and efforts to prevent contaminated groundwater from seeping beyond the central part of Hanford, Energy Department spokesman Geoff Tyree said.

“We are using funding available this year on priorities we believe are the consensus of the Tri-Parties,” Tyree said.

Ecology and EPA officials said they would respond formally to the request for extensions after meeting with Energy Department representatives in the coming weeks.

Ron Skinnarland, Ecology’s waste management chief, said a delay in studies could have a domino effect.

“The state is very concerned about the number of milestones and the overall impact on cleanup,” Skinnarland said.

The deadline extension request is “a starting point for fruitful discussions,” said Dennis Faulk, an EPA environmental scientist.

“Important work on the central plateau will continue,” Faulk said, “but it’s obvious a few tough priority decisions need to be made.”