The state of Washington has picked an experienced environmental law attorney to lead the Hanford Site regulatory work at the Department of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program. Alex Smith will start work in the Richland office as program manager on April 18, replacing Jane Hedges, who retired at the end of February. Tom Tebbs will continue as acting program manager through April 15. “Alex brings a wealth of regulatory and legal experience in both the public and private sector, including assisting with some work on Hanford as former lead attorney for Ecology’s hazardous waste and toxics reduction program,” said Polly Zehm, Ecology deputy director, in an announcement Monday. “One of the qualities that really impresses me about Alex is her commitment to fair and transparent communications with partners and stakeholders.” She was one of seven candidates interviewed for the position, including internal and external candidates.
Smith worked briefly as the senior attorney for the Port of Seattle after serving as the director of environmental programs for the Port of Olympia from 2011 to 2015. In that role she oversaw cleanup of contaminated sites at the port and was responsible for the port’s compliance with environmental regulatory requirements. She managed the design, permitting, and construction of several port projects. From 2000 to 2008 she was an assistant attorney general for the state of Washington, serving in both its Ecology and Natural Resources departments. She assisted with regulatory enforcement in front of the Pollution Control Hearings Board, including enforcement actions brought against the Department of Energy at Hanford. She also has worked as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice and in private practice, representing clients on site cleanup and resource damage claims in the Seattle area. “I am excited to join the team at Ecology and get to work on this incredibly important cleanup effort,” Smith said in a statement Monday. Smith said she looks forward to collaborating with DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, the local community, tribes, and stakeholder groups to ensure a safe, timely, and effective cleanup of Hanford.
DOE Says It Sent Contract to Court Advisor in Hanford Cleanup Case
While the Energy Department had reservations about allowing a Washington state employee to act as a court adviser in a recently decided federal case over cleanup deadlines at the Hanford Site, the agency said it has not prevented that adviser’s court-ordered payment.
That is according to a March 16 filing in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, in which DOE said FedEx records show an agency contract for Washington state Ecology Department employee Suzanne Dahl-Crumpler, was delivered for signature on March 1 — well ahead of a court-mandated deadline.
“Accordingly, the United States on behalf of DOE has fulfilled the Court’s March 11, 2016 order “to provide Ms. Dahl-Crumpler with a services contract within ten days [of the date of that order],” DOE wrote in the filing.
Dahl-Crumpler was one of three technical advisers who helped Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson reach her March 11 ruling updating milestones for Hanford Site cleanup, including ordering DOE to start treating the most contaminated liquid waste at the former plutonium production site by 2036 .
At multiple points in its long-running court case with Washington state, DOE claimed Dahl-Crumpler was ineligible to serve as a technical adviser because of her bias as a state employee, along with provisions of Washington law that barred her from taking what the agency saw as a paid consulting job with the court.
The department most recently raised the issue on March 9, two days before Malouf Peterson released her decision. In an order released along with that decision, Malouf Peterson rejected DOE’s arguments and scolded the agency for wasting time and money by questioning Dahl-Crumpler’s eligibility to serve so late into the judicial process.
Malouf Peterson also ordered DOE to send Dahl-Crumpler her contract, which a letter from the Washington state Attorney General’s Office said she had not received. The letter from Washington state was appended to DOE’s March 9 filing.
According to DOE’s March 16 filing, FedEx records show contracts were delivered to all three technical advisers March 1. At the time of the filing, DOE wrote, only one of these people had signed a contract and returned it to the agency for payment: former DOE official Jeffrey Trent, who is now a senior associate at the Las Vegas-based consulting shop Longenecker & Associates.
Hanford Tour Registration Opens April 5
Registration for popular site-wide Hanford tours focusing on environmental cleanup opens at 9 a.m. April 5 at www.hanford.gov. This year only 15 tours are being offered, after a stop at B Reactor was removed from the tour now that the reactor is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Separate tours of the reactor will continue to be offered, but registration for those has yet to be announced. The Department of Energy will assess the popularity of site-wide tours and could add more. In previous years as many as 60 site-wide tours have been offered, and tours have filled shortly after the start of online registration.
The route for this year’s tours has not been set, but possible stops include a final look at the Plutonium Finishing Plant. The plant, scheduled for demolition before next year’s tours, produced nearly two-thirds of the nation’s supply of plutonium during the Cold War. The Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, a 107-acre landfill for low-level radioactive and hazardous chemical waste, is expected to be on the tour. Visitors also will likely see the Waste Treatment Plant. Construction has been underway there since 2002 to build a plant to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste into a stable glass form for disposal. It could start treating some waste in 2022.
Tour participants must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. Government-issued photo identification is required and visitors from Washington and some other states without Real ID-compliant driver’s licenses may be required to show two forms of ID The tours will be offered starting at 8 a.m. selected weekdays from May 3 to July 27 and will last about four hours. They begin and end at the HAMMER Federal Training Center, 2890 Horn Rapids Road in Richland.
