EPA WANTS WASH. STATE TO IMPROVE OVERSIGHT OF HANFORD

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is concerned with how Washington state environmental regulators are performing oversight at Hanford, according to a draft EPA report the watchdog group Hanford Challenge made public yesterday. The draft report, dated April 29, 2013, examines how the Washington State Department of Ecology implemented various environmental laws in Fiscal Year 2011. Among the concerns noted in the report is that Ecology has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy so that prior written notice is given of inspection plans at Hanford, including the specific areas to be inspected. “Ecology has limited its compliance evaluations to only those areas identified in the prior written notice and has excluded other observations that occur until they have given adequate notice to Energy. This has created at least one instance when Ecology inspectors had to return to their office, write a notice to Energy, and later return to the area where they had earlier observed a potential violation in order to complete the compliance evaluation,” the draft report says, adding,. “This notification significantly inhibits Ecology’s ability to  complete inspections which cover the entire facility and to make accurate and timely compliance determinations.”

The EPA also expressed concern with how often Ecology performs inspections at Hanford. “Our review of the Hanford files indicated that only 2 of the 24 units at the facility were inspected in FY 2011 which does not meet the statutory requirement for a full compliance evaluation inspection,” the draft report says. In the draft report, Ecology said that it is “difficult” to perform a full inspection of Hanford in one year, and that the number of site inspections increased in 2012 and were expected to further increase this year. Ecology also said that it did not always provide advance notice of its inspections, and that it did provide advance notification in some instances “for our convenience … so that we don’t have to wait for radiation control technicians to arrive at the inspection,” the draft report says. It also notes in the state response section, “NWP does not have an agreement with USDOE that Ecology will provide prior written notice of an inspection”

In a statement accompanying the release of the draft report, though, Hanford Challenge Executive Director Tom Carpenter said, “We have been highly concerned about regulatory capture at Hanford for some time, and we believe that the State needs more of an arms-length relationship from the polluter at Hanford. Over the past 2 years, there has been only one enforcement action at Hanford. In the same period of time, Ecology has filed over a thousand such enforcement actions against other polluters in the state. This wouldn’t be a problem if Hanford was in great shape, but we know that it’s not.”