LAWMAKER: HANFORD VIT PLANT A ‘BLEEDING WOUND’ FOR DOE

Kaptur also said, “I’m not a nuclear scientist, but maybe we’re trying to do something we don’t know how to do. If it’s a research project, let’s call it a research project.” She went on to tell the senior DOE officials who testified at yesterday’s hearing, “At this point I don’t even believe it’s going to accomplish what your testimony says it might. Scientifically I’m not assured.”

 

During yesterday’s hearing, senior DOE Office of Environmental Management official Jack Surash told the subcommittee that the Department could not currently provide an up-to-date cost-and-schedule estimate for completing the WTP, citing the work now underway to finally resolve the long-standing technical issues that have slowed progress on the project. “We need to let the technical review complete so we … mature the technology and mature the design,” he said. On the sidelines of the hearing, Surash defended DOE’s approach, telling WC Monitor that the Department didn’t want to “guess” what the cost-and-schedule may be for the project before the technical issues are fully resolved and the solutions incorporated into the plant’s design. “We’re going to take this step by step,” he said. “Truly until the technology issues are determined, we don’t understand what the impact on design and construction is, so we don’t want to guess. We don’t want to set up expectations that we can’t realize.”