Update: $30B nuclear waste plant can ‘finally’ start. WA leaders react

The Department of Energy on Wednesday signed the paperwork needed to allow radioactive waste to be pumped into the Hanford nuclear site’s vitrification plant 23 years after construction began, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

The DOE signoff, which had been expected by the end of August before rumors that DOE was rethinking the project, was the last remaining obstacle to initiate waste treatment, according to Murray’s staff late Wednesday.

DOE faces a federal court deadline of Oct. 15 to start turning radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at Hanford in Eastern Washington into a stable, but still radioactive, glass form.

“After unacceptable delays, it’s good that DOE has finally heeded my call to sign the paperwork necessary to move forward with the final step of hot commissioning before treatment of radioactive waste can begin on Oct. 15,” Murray said in a statement.

DOE confirmed in a statement Thursday that DOE had given its approval.

“As with every project, Hanford continues working through remaining steps to prepare for startup in a safe and deliberate manner,” the statement said.

During hot commissioning, DOE contractor Bechtel National is required to start operating the massive vitrification plant to demonstrate it can turn some radioactive waste into a glass form that is acceptable for disposal at a lined landfill in central Hanford.

To date, Bechtel has operated the plant using only a nonradioactive waste simulant to test its processes.

“Congress has invested billions of dollars, and years of work with the state of Washington, to finally start turning nuclear waste into glass at Hanford for safe, long-term storage,” Murray said. “We’re talking radioactive waste that poses a threat to the Columbia River and the health and safety of thousands of residents in the Tri-Cities.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Thursday morning that she was looking forward to October “when tank waste will be removed, treated and safely stored for disposal.”

DOE finally heard the history lesson that she and others had been sharing with federal officials, she said in a speech on the Senate floor last week after what her staff said were alarming signals from the Trump administration that it might delay the startup of the vitrification plant, risking thousands of jobs and billions of dollars already invested in the plant.

“Every time a new administration comes in, somebody looks at the amount of money that it takes to clean up nuclear waste that’s been stored in tanks and says, ‘This costs too much. We ought to be able to do it cheaper,’” she said.

Under Trump’s first administration, the part of the vitrification plant to treat the less radioactive waste finally was put on track, and this is no time to derail the project, she said.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., said Thursday morning that Wright told him multiple times over the past 10 days that there would be no delays to the start of the Waste Treatment Plant, commonly called the vitrification plant.

“… I look forward to seeing Hanford achieve this milestone and enter its next chapter in the cleanup mission,” Newnouse said.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, called the DOE signoff a “victory worth celebrating.”

“The united voices of workers, businesses and elected leaders are making a difference,” he said in a statement Thursday. “We will hold the Trump administration accountable to the Oct. 15 deadline to begin treating waste at the Waste Treatment Plant.”

The Washington state Department of Ecology is waiting for DOE to complete testing of the plant, which the state agency will review before it issues final permits. Waste treatment controversy

Rumors surfaced Sept. 8 that DOE planned to stall or cancel the startup of the vitrification plant after Roger Jarrell, the principal deputy assistant secretary of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, was abruptly fired.

E&E by Politico quoted an unnamed source saying that Energy Secretary Chris Wright wanted to go in a “different direction” on treating Hanford’s radioactive tank waste.

The same source told the publication that, “I think they want to kill WTP (the Waste Treatment Plant or vitrification plant) altogether, even though it’s (close to being operational.)”

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.

Wright responded with a public statement saying that contrary to news reports, DOE had not made changes to its commitment to environmental cleanup at the Hanford nuclear site adjacent to Richland.

However, he did not rule out the possibility of changes to plans for stabilizing waste now held in underground tanks.

He said DOE would continue examining testing and operations to turn the least radioactive waste in underground tanks into a stable glass form to ensure that the plan is “safe, cost-effective and environmentally sound.”

The 580-square-mile Hanford nuclear site was used to chemically process uranium fuel irradiated in Hanford’s nine reactors to separate out plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.

The work left 56 million gallons of a stew of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste stored in 177 tanks, including 148 single-shell tanks that have leaked or are prone to leaking waste into the soil above groundwater that moves slowing toward the Columbia River. The river flows through the nuclear reservation. Murray, other Dems leery

After Wright’s statement on Tuesday, Sept. 9, Murray talked to him on the phone and grew more concerned.

She said Wright admitted “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.”

She put the money spent to date on designing, building, testing and commissioning the vitrification plant, with no waste yet glassified, at $30 billion. Construction on the part of the plant that is required to start glassifying the most radioactive waste held in underground tanks is continuing.

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

Wright again responded, saying that although there are “challenges,” DOE is committed to meeting the Oct. 15 startup deadline. Newhouse’s staff said the congressman had requested the new statement to ease concerns of the public, workers and others.

But Murray was not convinced.

“When it comes to this administration, actions speak louder than words,” she said. “I need to see real evidence that this administration is moving forward on our decades-long effort to turn nuclear waste into glass at Hanford.”

She also said she wanted an explanation for the conflicting information she had received from DOE over the past 48 hours. No safety issues, says WA

Ferguson also joined the discussion, coming to the Tri-Cities on Friday, Sept. 12, to say that DOE would face legal action if it missed the Oct. 15 deadline. DOE would lose the legal challenge, he warned.

The Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator which must issue permits to allow the plant to start operating, has found no safety issue that would delay its startup, said Casey Sixkiller, the state Ecology director, at the same press conference.

That’s contrary to what Murray said Wright told her earlier in the week. Murray also has pointed out that the Project Management Risk Committee this summer unanimously endorsed moving forward to complete preparations to start up the plant, according to internal DOE records.

Startup of the plant is not only required to meet a federal court consent order setting deadlines for Hanford tank waste treatment, but is also required under the terms of a holistic agreement that DOE and the state of Washington spent four months negotiating to clarify the path forward for tank waste. It was finalized early this year.

It calls for glassification of radioactive waste at the vitrification plant starting this year and also for some of the less radioactive waste in tanks to be turned into a concrete-like grout form.

Because of Hanford’s geology, including its groundwater, the state would not agree to allow grouted waste to be disposed of in a lined landfill at Hanford built for the disposal of some of the vitrified waste. Instead, it must be disposed of in Utah or Texas.

The agreement to both vitrify and grout waste will get waste out of leak-prone underground tanks sooner, and some proponents of grouting believe it could be less expensive than vitrification.

Some 67 single-shell tanks are suspected of leaking or spilling radioactive waste into the ground in the past, and three single-shell tanks are known to be leaking now. Some of the oldest single-shell tanks have stored waste for more than 80 years.