Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is making it clear the Department of Energy’s cleanup efforts will be a major topic of discussion when the White House’s nominee for the next Secretary of Energy—MIT physicist Ernest Moniz—comes before his committee next week. “The next Secretary of Energy – Dr. Moniz – needs to understand that a major part of his job is going to be to get the Hanford cleanup back on track,” Wyden said in a statement issued after the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board sent him a letter this week outlining nuclear safety issues at Hanford. In its letter, the Board reiterated concerns over flammable gases in Hanford’s underground waste tanks and technical challenges at the Waste Treatment Plant under construction. “It was more than 20 years ago that I succeeded in passing legislation to require a watch list of Hanford tanks that pose a risk of hydrogen explosions and a plan to address them. Now in this letter, the Board says that the high-level waste tanks continue to present a risk of hydrogen explosions,” Wyden said.
He also said, “When it comes to developing a more permanent solution to the problem through construction of the high-level waste treatment plant, the Board’s letter identifies a substantial number of unresolved problems and which says to me that the Hanford waste treatment plant schedule is going to be delayed even further, and the cost is going to rise even more. There is a real question as to whether the plant, as currently designed, will work at all.” The Board’s letter can be found here.
In a statement posted on the Hanford website yesterday, DOE said it is “absolutely committed” to ensuring the safety of the site’s underground waste tanks. “All DSTs [double-shell tanks] are actively ventilated, which means they have blowers and fans to prevent hydrogen gas build-up. These ventilation systems are monitored to ensure they are operating as intended,” DOE said, adding that “for even greater safety, DOE instituted an improved testing and monitoring system to allow for direct monitoring of the tank ventilation system in February.”
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