The Department of Energy on Tuesday finalized the membership package to reconstitute the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), which has been unable to establish a quorum to conduct business for three months.
Membership for about half the members of the board expired at the end of June. Half of the members and their alternates for 32 seats must be appointed or reappointed each year by DOE headquarters.
The board of local community members is intended to provide “informed recommendations and advice” to DOE on the massive cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. It conducted some business through August, but in September the last of five full meetings set for fiscal 2017 was canceled due to lack of a quorum. The board also was told in early September that it could not conduct any further business, according to the panel’s leadership. That caused the board to cancel scheduled telephonic planning meetings for members in September, along with meetings of HAB committees in early October.
HAB Chairwoman Susan Leckband, who was among the members waiting for reappointment, called the halt to board activities “incredibly frustrating.”
The Washington state Department of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program said in a statement Monday that “HAB provides invaluable guidance, resulting in much better decision-making at Hanford.” The board provides advice not only to DOE, but also to Hanford’s regulators: the Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency. Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program said it wanted DOE to reconvene the board, but if needed it has the authority under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to convene a community advisory board.
The Energy Department said Monday it would schedule the next meeting of the HAB “in the near future.”
