March 17, 2014

WASH. STATE HOLDING OFF ON DISPUTE RESOLUTION FOR WTP MILESTONES

By ExchangeMonitor

The state of Washington will not immediately go to dispute resolution over consent decree deadlines that will be missed at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) said late last week. But she also will not allow the Department of Energy to “throw in the towel” on the deadlines and tell the state to trust the federal government without full information, Gregoire told the Tri-City Herald editorial board. Technical problems should be fixed at the plant, but DOE needs to show the state a plan and a schedule, she said. A lawsuit filed by the state against DOE in Eastern Washington U.S. District Court was settled in October 2010 with a consent decree requiring DOE to meet new court-enforced deadlines to get the vitrification plant built and begin waste treatment. The consent decree outlines a dispute resolution process that requires one of the parties to send a written demand for the start of good faith negotiations with the other. If 40 days later the matter has not been settled, either party can petition the court to take action.

Just a year after the consent decree was signed, DOE told the state that it could not meet the deadlines and provided little other information, Gregoire said. She’s been concerned about a lack of information and DOE’s “trust us” attitude, she said. DOE has confirmed that 10 vitrification plant deadlines were at risk, starting with a Dec. 31, 2014, deadline to place concrete floor slabs at the 98-foot elevation for the plant’s Pretreatment Facility. The 10th deadline at risk was the one requiring the plant to be fully operational at the end of 2022. The deadlines were at risk because of issues related to keeping waste well mixed, erosion and corrosion of metal components of the plant over its operating lifetime and the documented safety analysis, the state was told. But the state is concerned that DOE is assuming funding limitations rather than exploring all options for meeting deadlines, said Mary Sue Wilson, senior assistant attorney general for the state.

Gregoire, who is not running for re-election, said she would discuss the importance of the consent decree with her successor. Congress has realized that the state has used its authority concerning Hanford responsibly, she said. “But why there is one concern after another gets to be a problem,” she said. “Time is of the essence. The tanks are not going to be put on hold. The groundwater is not going to be put on hold. We’ve got to get going.”

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