Energy secretary admits stalling $30B radioactive waste plant in WA, says Murray

The Trump administration is actively stalling progress toward startup of the Hanford nuclear site’s vitrification plant, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Wednesday evening after speaking with Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

“Today, Secretary Wright admitted to me during a phone call that the Department of Energy is planning to curb hot commissioning at the Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford — an astonishingly senseless and destructive move and a threat to the entire nuclear cleanup mission at Hanford,” Murray said.

Construction of the vit plant, or Waste Treatment Plant, began 23 years ago, but testing and commissioning of the plant is on track to introduce radioactive waste to the plant and finally start operating it in the coming weeks, according to a statement from Murray’s office.

More than $30 billion has been spent on building the plant and preparing it to treat a stew of radioactive and chemical waste for disposal, according to information from Murray’s office.

“Secretary Wright claimed that moving forward with hot commissioning is an issue of safety, but records do not corroborate his assertion,” Murray said.

She responded by putting a hold on President Trump’s nomination of Tim Walsh, a Colorado real estate developer, to be assistant secretary of energy.

“We are closer than we’ve ever been to turning nuclear waste into glass,” Murray said. “I won’t let the Trump administration light billions of taxpayer dollars on fire.” Murray questions explanation

Wright’s statement on safety is in stark contrast to the information her office received today about progress toward startup of the plant to begin treating some of the radioactive waste that has been in leak-prone underground tanks at the nuclear site for decades, she said.

She was told that safety reviews and technical tests of one of the two melters at the plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility have been completed, she said.

The two melters will be used to mix some of the less radioactive waste, which also contains hazardous chemical waste, with glass-making material and then heat the waste to turn it into a stable, but still radioactive, glass form for disposal.

In July, the DOE project manager for the vitrification plant confirmed that the vitrification plant was on schedule to glassify waste for the first time by Oct. 15 in a step called hot commissioning. It would bring radioactive waste into the vitrification plant for the first time.

DOE was still waiting in July for the results of tests to show that atmospheric emissions from operating the melters were safe for the community and environment.

Murray is hearing that the plant is on track to start treating radioactive waste sooner than the deadline of Oct. 15 set in a federal court consent decree. That deadline had recently been extended from Aug. 1.

Murray talked with Wright on Wednesday after rumors began circulating that he was interested in a new direction for waste treatment at the Hanford nuclear site in Eastern Washington, adjacent to Richland. New direction for waste treatment?

On Monday, Roger Jarrell, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, was fired, apparently in a move related to a possible change in direction to Hanford waste cleanup. He was responsible for environmental cleanup of Hanford and other sites contaminated with nuclear waste.

E&E by Politico quoted an anonymous source as saying, “I think they want to kill the WTP (Waste Treatment Plant) altogether, even though it’s (close to being operational.)

After four years of negotiations between DOE and Washington state, an agreement was finalized at the first of this year that called for vitrification plant treatment of low activity radioactive waste to start this year and the treatment of high level radioactive waste to start by 2033.

The 580-square-mile Hanford nuclear site has 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste held in underground tanks from chemically processing irradiated uranium to remove plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.

Some of the waste has been stored in leak-prone tanks for 80 years.

DOE has been pursuing a plan in agreement with the state to not only vitrify low activity waste at the Waste Treatment Plant, but to also turn some waste into concrete-like grout.

No decision has been made on whether to grout waste at Hanford or ship it offsite for treatment. The grouted waste would be disposed of in Utah or Texas.

The dual-treatment plan would allow waste to be emptied more quickly from leak-prone underground tanks that sit above groundwater that moves toward the Columbia River flowing through the Hanford site.

This summer a test project of grouting was successfully completed, with 2,000 gallons of low-activity waste from a single Hanford tank grouted and disposed of out-of-state.

Because of the need to treat a varied mix of waste in the tanks from different chemical processes used through the decades, the vitrification plant at Hanford is the world’s most technically sophisticated radioactive waste treatment plant. Hold on Walsh’s nomination

“Whether Secretary Wright was given bad information or is simply confused about how the vitrification facility works, I can’t say, but I am not satisfied by his explanation for why DOE has suddenly decided to stall progress on the Waste Treatment Plant,” Murray said in a statement Wednesday evening.

“Last night I put a hold on Tim Walsh’s nomination to oversee Hanford,” Murray said. “I am not letting up and will do everything I can to get to the bottom of DOE’s intentions and stop this catastrophic move to upend the Hanford cleanup mission.”

The Trump administration needs to understand that trying to do nuclear waste cleanup on the cheap is dangerous and could be more costly in the long run, Murray said.

The plant is one of the top employers in the Tri-Cities, with an annual payroll of about $350 million and nearly 3,000 employees.