Weapons Complex Monitor Vol. 32 No. 20
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Weapons Complex Monitor
Article 10 of 10
May 21, 2021

I Love This Job: 30 Minutes With David Bowen, Nuclear Waste Program Manager, Washington State Department of Ecology

By Wayne Barber

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is often described in Congressional hearings and other forums as one the most costly and complex cleanup projects in North America — if not the world.

But it is this complexity that oddly appeals to David Bowen, who became the Washington state Department of Ecology’s nuclear waste program manager in December. 

“I love complex projects so I love this job right now,” Bowen told Weapons Complex Monitor in a recent interview.

Five months into his tenure, Bowen said Washington Ecology was prepared to walk away from talks with DOE on Hanford cleanup milestones if real progress was not evident by the end of this month. But much headway has been made, leaving Bowen optimistic that the foundation of an agreement can take shape in the near future. 

Bowen grew up in Washington state within a couple hours’ drive from the former plutonium production complex. “It has always been: It’s out there, it needs to be cleaned up,” Bowen said. “Just having the opportunity to be part of making progress going forward and actually to start to treat stuff,” radioactive tank waste, is meaningful, Bowen said.

Bowen, who succeeded attorney Alex Smith who left to accept another management post in state government, started doing his homework on Hanford a few weeks prior to actually beginning the job on Dec. 16. 

“I still have more to learn than I know,” Bowen told the Monitor.

Note: The exchange has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Weapons Complex Monitor: What’s it like to start running the nuclear waste office in the middle of a pandemic?

Bowen: It’s a unique situation for sure. Usually, you go to a place of work, you meet your co-workers, you do your job and you go back home. I had already spent about eight months of time with the water quality program working remotely. Some people are even more productive working from home. As for Hanford, it is a really complex project … and there is a diverse bunch of people who have their own idea about what’s most important.

WCM:  How have you gotten a handle on the issues at Hanford, so many of which are deeply technical and hotly-debated?

Bowen: In the fourth month I was starting to get it. I wasn’t going 70 miles-per-hour, like everybody else, but I was probably traveling around about 20 or so. DOE took me around the site in a very large bus with about four of us in it. It was like a tour bus that might seat 25 to 30 people [allowing for social distancing].   

WCM: How much in the way of staff do you have to accomplish your role in Hanford oversight?

Bowen: We have authority for about 90 staff members. I think we have 82 right now. [While on-site inspections were very limited for four to five months], now we are pretty actively out doing our face-to-face inspections again.

WCM: Are you still mostly virtual now?

Bowen: Yes. We had planned to be through the end of June. It’s been extended through July for sure. The entire agency is going to try to transition to being a little more flexible. In August or September, we should start working from the office for the team building and face-to-face meetings.

WCM: Are most of your staff vaccinated or plan to be soon?

Bowen: Actually, we don’t ask. Under the HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] rules, the state in general has chosen not to ask that question.

We are still in that analysis stage in the state of Washington on absorbing what the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has put out [on masks]. In the state of Washington, we have decided to stay on the side of safety. I’m anticipating the mask rule will lighten over time but I don’t know what that looks like yet.

WCM: What power do you have over DOE to make the feds do what you believe needs to be done at Hanford?

Bowen: Our role is to facilitate effective cleanup of the Hanford site. In order to do that we provide technical assistance [via our specialists] and perform permitting. We try to be proactive and sometimes we have to be reactive. We spend a lot of time negotiating on what might be in a permit and how to resolve an issue.

WCM: When you took the nuclear job, the state agency and DOE, along with EPA, had already agreed to enter “holistic” talks about cleanup timetables rather than going back to court. While the parties have taken a vow of silence about details, is there anything in broad terms that you can share?

Bowen: The idea of the negotiations was to set an achievable schedule for waste retrieval and treatment. We have permission from the director to continue those negotiations through the end of May. That direction was given to us in February if I remember correctly … We decided to start meeting once a week rather than once a month. During the last six to eight weeks we have really had some great conversations. We have a much better understanding of where folks are coming from. I am optimistic we can come to an agreement on what the path forward looks like. I think it will be an agreement in principle at first and then we will have to get more into the weeds. The idea is to check in by the end of May. Expect the talks to be extended a little longer. I can’t tell you what the timeline will be.

WCM: How would you describe Ecology’s current relationship with DOE and EPA? Can you briefly talk about how those three parties run the Tri-Party Agreement [TPA]?

Bowen: My first five months here have been about establishing relationships at Energy and EPA. My philosophy is that there is a healthy tension between the regulator and the permitee. We can do better in that area. We are working on that at the management level for sure, and are trying to trickle that down through the staff. As for EPA, I don’t think we have had any conflict in the five months that I have been here. The Tri-Party Agreement, John Price [Ecology’s section manager for the agreement] has been here a long time. There are probably three meetings a week on that. We are trying to stay within our authorities and protect the health and safety of the communities. It’s working. It could always be better.

WCM: The Waste Treatment Plant will not have enough throughput to handle all the low-activity waste at Hanford. Some estimates have said no more than 50%. Does the state have any opinions on what should be done with the rest, such as building another vit plant or grouting waste and sending it to Texas?

Bowen: I am not sure I can give you a lot of detail on it. … We are there to support Energy as they think through all the options.

Randy Bradbury, Ecology’s communications manager for the Hanford nuclear program, adds that no one will really know how the low-activity process will proceed until it actually begins, and even then it may take years before DOE can make reliable projections about the long-term capacity and pace of vitrification. The state’s more pressing concern is the scheduled startup of high-activity waste treatment in the mid-2030s. 

WCM: A lot of the issues at Hanford are planned and carried out over a very long time period. This includes the startup of the vitrification plant. But how do pivot to emergencies like PUREX tunnel collapse, or the recent news of another tank leak?

Bowen: The tunnel collapse I did not get to experience here. But I understand it was all-hands on deck. We drop what we are doing and work with DOE. Unexpected situations like that usually cost money. We try to be supportive. On tank leaks, the TPA spells out how we work with Energy to identify the best path forward. But it amplifies and puts a spotlight on the fact that we do have aging tanks on the ground. The leaks are likely to happen more often. Energy’s preference is to retrieve it and treat it. If we need to actually build additional storage, while the treatment plants get up and running, we are supportive of that too. The state will work with the governor and with our representatives to find ways to get funding to the site – not do different things from what Energy wants to do but maybe accelerate some of the things they want to do in their long-term planning.

WCM: Short-term would be adding a new tank or two?

Bowen: Short-term is a relative term. Long-term here is 15 years to decades. Short-term is three to 15 years. But yes, the TPA lays out the process for reaching a consensus. If we don’t end up getting to an agreement, we end up going down an enforcement path with administrative orders and courts. You spend three years doing that or you spend three years building something to address the issue.

There are some really talented people at Energy, Ecology and EPA trying to get to the same place. I’m optimistic going forward. We have got some good paths to follow and there are some legal issues to resolve. 

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NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

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by @BenjaminSWeiss, confirming today's reports with warrant from Las Vegas Metro PD.

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