The current government shutdown should not affect startup and early operation of a new multi-billion-dollar plant to convert radioactive tank waste into glass at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site at Richland, Wash., an Oregon panel heard Tuesday.
Separately, the Tri-City Herald newspaper reported Thursday that the Hanford tank waste contractor, BWXT-led Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure (H2C), wrote to union umbrella group Hanford Atomic Metals Council this week to say it could layoff hundreds of workers this month due to the shutdown. But H2C promptly withdrew the contingency letter, the newspaper said.
When contacted Friday morning by Exchange Monitor, H2C declined comment.
Meanwhile the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) Hanford Cleanup Board heard during a special virtual meeting this week the shutdown won’t stop early glass-making at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP).
The DOE Office of Environmental Management has enough leftover fiscal 2025 money to continue operating normally for probably four weeks. That was the word from Stephanie Schlief, nuclear waste program manager for the Washington state Department of Ecology. Washington Ecology is the state regulator for DOE’s Hanford Site.
Even then DOE’s Environmental Management (EM) office would, in consultation with its contractors, arrange for minimum safety and priority operations to go forward. Schlief said she has not heard anything about WTP startup being affected. “The commissioning and the startup” are not likely to be affected, Schlief said.
No federal DOE representative spoke at the virtual meeting, called largely to address the federal shutdown, which commenced Oct. 1, and glass-making at WTP, which is supposed to happen by Oct. 15. DOE Environmental Management, its contractors and Washington Ecology announced Wednesday the first transfer of radioactive liquid and hazardous chemical waste occurred this week.
“We all hope the government isn’t shut down for four weeks,” said ODOE’s assistant director for nuclear safety, Maxwell Woods. “You can’t just stop the melter.” It is “hard to imagine critical site work not proceeding,” he said.
Schlief and Woods both said that they have heard nothing about the federal DOE’s funding for Washington or Oregon’s nuclear waste programs being reduced by the shutdown.
Oregon, like neighboring Washington state, monitors Hanford cleanup and its impact on the Columbia River, which runs through Hanford, a one-time plutonium production site. Decades of plutonium production for the federal government left behind 56 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste held in underground storage tanks at Hanford. The WTP is supposed to start converting some of the less radioactive waste into a solid glass form next week.