Talks between Washington state and the Department of Energy over the future of Hanford Site cleanup continued this fall at a very granular level, according to the latest court-mandated status update about these so-called “holistic” negotiations..
“Since filing the last update on July 30, 2021, the Parties have continued to participate in mediation sessions, including subcommittee and/or small group mediation sessions,” according to a status report filed Oct. 29 in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington by the office of State Attorney General Robert Ferguson.
The three-page document submitted by Andrew Fitz, a senior attorney with Ferguson’s office, did not say how many mediation sessions or small group sessions have occurred since the end of July, prior to which talks had slowed somewhat over the summer vacation season, according to the last report by the state attorney general’s office.
Last month, Suzanne Dahl, tank waste section manager for the Washington Department of Ecology, told a National Academies of Science panel studying options for supplemental low-activity waste treatments, she was limited in what she could share about the future of Hanford waste given the confidential nature of the talks.
In May, the head of Washington Ecology’s nuclear waste program, David Bowen said he was cautiously optimistic the framework of a deal could be worked out. In September 2019, Hanford’s site manager Brian Vance agreed to talks on “a holistic and realistic path forward” at Hanford after the state accused DOE of not living up to its obligations under the revised 1989 Tri-Party Agreement that governs cleanup at the former plutonium. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the third major player in the ongoing talks being carried out with the help of a federal mediator.
Quarterly updates are being filed with the court as an outgrowth of 2008 litigation brought by Oregon and Washington state over problems with cleanup of radioactive waste at Hanford, which spawned the latest modified consent decree in 2016.
