At least one member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said last week he favors giving the Hanford Site in Washington state the ability to pursue lower-cost options for disposal of millions of tons of radioactive waste.
Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) said he favors giving the Energy Department extra flexibility at Hanford if it means saving taxpayers billions of dollars, as Government Accountability Office research suggests. He cited the potential to grout the waste, rather than costlier vitrification that would convert the waste into a glass form for safe disposal.
“We would be doing great service to the republic” by giving the Energy Department this cost-saving option, Russell said during an April 26 hearing on an annual GAO review into opportunities for significant government cost savings.
Russell made the comments while questioning U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro and other GAO officials about less expensive options for dealing with low-activity waste at Hanford. The process, immobilizing the waste in a substance akin to concrete, has already been used at separate DOE facilities: including treating 4 million gallons of low-activity waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
In 2004, Congress gave the Energy Department authority to use grout as a waste-disposal option at virtually all sites except Hanford, where the Washington state government was skeptical about the technology.
Energy Department estimates indicate it will cost $53 billion for facilities needed to vitrify more than 49 million gallons of low-activity waste at Hanford. By comparison, DOE figures indicated it could only cost $5.5 billion to construct treatment facilities and treat the 36 million gallons of the Savannah River Site’s LAW with grout.