A public meeting is planned for March 14 in Richland, Wash., on permit changes to support the Department of Energy’s plan to stabilize the second waste tunnel at the Hanford Site PUREX Plant. It also will cover actions already taken to stabilize the first tunnel at the plant.
After the older of two tunnels storing radioactive waste was discovered partially collapsed in May, a structural study was conducted of the second, longer tunnel. It found that the 1,700-foot-long tunnel built in 1964 also was a risk of collapse.
The first tunnel has already been filled with concrete-like grout for stabilization. In December, DOE said it also planned to fill the second tunnel with grout. It holds 28 railcars loaded mostly with large pieces of equipment that are contaminated with highly radioactive waste from the plant’s recovery of plutonium from irradiated fuel rods.
The decision will require a modification of the Hanford Site Dangerous Waste Permit issued by the Washington state Department of Ecology. Proposed modifications will cover information such as the grout formulation, the grout injection system, and alternatives available for eventual permanent closure of the tunnels. Grouting is considered an interim stabilization step.
The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Richland Public Library, 955 Northgate Drive. Participation also will be available via webinar. The link and webinar ID can be found here.
Former Hanford Contractor, DOJ Get Extension to Settle Lawsuit
The U.S. Department of Justice and Washington Closure Hanford have been given an extension to reach a settlement agreement in a civil lawsuit brought by the federal government over subcontracting at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
After the parties failed to settle the lawsuit by Feb. 22, Judge Sal Mendoza Jr., of U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, ordered them to either reach an agreement by March 8 or submit a status report.
The parties told the judge in a Feb. 22 court filing they have been working to finalize the agreement in principle reached near the first of the year and were making progress toward resolving the outstanding issues.
The Justice Department has accused the former Hanford prime cleanup contractor of awarding small business subcontracts to front companies. Washington Closure’s contract for environmental remediation of Hanford’s River Corridor, which included small business subcontracting requirements, expired in September 2016 with most work completed.
If the proposed settlement agreement is finalized and executed, it will resolve the litigation in its entirety, the parties have told Mendoza. Two other defendants in the case have settled since late summer. Both claimed no wrongdoing, but said they wanted out of the expensive and complicated litigation. Sage Tec, a small, woman-owned business, settled for $235,000; Federal Engineers & Constructors (FE&C), which teamed with Sage Tec on two subcontracts, settled for $2 million.
The lawsuit was initially filed under the False Claims Act in 2010 by Savage Logistics, a woman-owned small-business subcontractor. The Department of Justice took over the litigation in 2013.
