Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
5/9/2014
With numerous cleanup milestones at risk due to insufficient budget requests, the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s set of ECitizens Advisory Boards are emphasizing that DOE should ask for adequate cleanup funding to meet commitments. “The Environmental Management Site Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB) believes the fiscal year 2015 budget request is insufficient to meet the cleanup obligations facing the EM cleanup sites. We also believe that the Department of Energy (DOE) needs to honor the agreements and established milestones between the federal government, the states, Tribes and affected stakeholders in a more timely fashion,” states a draft letter to the Department. The letter, signed by the chairs of all the EM advisory Boards, was posted this week by the Savannah River CAB.
The Department requested $5.6 billion for the Office of Environmental Management in its Fiscal Year 2015 budget request, a cut of approximately $200 million from the funding levels Congress enacted for FY 2014. Milestones have been put at risk at Hanford and the Savannah River Site due, in part, to the Department’s Fiscal Year 2014 and ‘15 budget requests. The Richland Operations Office at Hanford suffered the biggest cut in EM’s FY’15 budget request: $848 million compared to RL’s FY’14 enacted funding level of $941 million. At Richland, up to seven cleanup milestones are at risk in FY’15, and last month Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) expressed concern about the adequacy of the DOE request. Richland milestones at risk include having the Plutonium Finishing Plant ready for demolition, retrieving 1,250 cubic meters of remote handled waste stored in burial grounds at the Central Plateau and certifying 250 cubic meters of small container handled transuranic mixed waste on the Central Plateau. Four other milestones at risk involve feasibility studies and plans for remediation of various areas in the Central Plateau.
At Savannah River, the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request cut tank waste cleanup operations by $183 million below funding levels that had been enacted, for a FY14 request of $644.5 million. Those cuts have contributed to anticipated delays in closure of numerous high level waste tanks beyond regulatory milestones, leading last year to calls from South Carolina to request adequate funding. “We believe these cleanup obligations must be met in real time, not delayed. Every year DOE needs to honor their current commitments by requesting all funding to support cleanup activities and milestones, and request funding for newly established milestones,” states the draft recommendation signed by the chairs of advisory boards at Hanford, Savannah River, Idaho, Oak Ridge, Paducah, Portsmouth, Northern New Mexico and Nevada
