The U.S. Department of Energy and the Washington state Department of Ecology on Wednesday kicked off talks they hope will result in a mutually agreeable future plan to address key issues in management of radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site.
An Energy Department spokesperson confirmed the talks were underway.
“The Department appreciates the discussions with the Washington Department of Ecology regarding our shared objective of advancing this difficult cleanup in a manner that provides long-term benefits for local communities, the region, the state, and the nation,” the DOE spokesperson said in a Wednesday email.
The opening session was a “scoping” meeting to help focus the upcoming discussions on key issues, Ecology spokesman Randy Bradbury said by email Thursday. Based on letters between the agencies, potential key issues could include the schedule for vitrification of low-activity radioactive waste at the Waste Treatment Plant, treatment options for high-level waste, and removing waste from old single-shell tanks.
Alex Smith, manager of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program, was the top state official at the meeting, according to Bradbury.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also participating as the third signatory to the Tri-Party Agreement that sets milestones and schedules for cleanup of the complex that produced plutonium from World War II through the Cold War.
There are currently 56 million gallons of liquid radioactive and chemical waste stored on-site at Hanford in 177 underground storage tanks. Bechtel is building the Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford to convert much of that material into a glass form for disposal.
Ecology Department Director Maia Bellon in May called for a frank discussion about remediation of tank waste at Hanford, and said the state could take DOE to court if they cannot work things out. The Energy Department made a “unilateral” decision in 2018 to cease construction of a low-activity waste pre-treatment system at WTP. Instead, the agency shifted its focus toward a tank-side cesium removal system (TSCR), the state director said.
The state is dismayed by DOE’s inability to meet deadlines set in the Tri-Party Agreement, as well as a federal court consent decree issued in 2010 on cleanup deadlines, the Ecology director said.
Bellon said the state would not agree to any more adjustments in consent decree or Tri-Party Agreement milestones, “until we come to agreement on a mutually acceptable holistic path forward” and put it in writing.
The Energy Department manager for both the Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection at Hanford, Brian Vance, replied in a June letter that his agency wants to talk things out, but give-and-take is required. A holistic approach “also requires recognition of the substantial technical and fiscal challenges inherent in the Hanford cleanup,” he said.
The state is trying to force DOE to put a plan in place by fall 2023 for transferring radioactive and chemical waste from 149 single-shell tanks to double-shell tanks before the single-shells spring more leaks.
Vance noted said retrieval of waste from single-shell tanks has been slowed by several factors. These include bad weather, problems with the retrieval equipment, and mandatory employee use of supplied air respirators as a precaution against chemical vapors from the tanks.
Vance formally agreed to joint negotiations on Sept. 11. He said the goal is to conclude negotiations by July 31, 2020. The parties will consider hiring a professional mediator to assist with the process.
Substantive talks should get rolling in November, and regular updates will be filed with the U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington, which is in charge of the 2010 consent decree on Hanford cleanup, Vance wrote.
The state is concerned that DOE has already missed certain deadlines, and that it will miss a 2040 Tri-Party deadline for removing 56 million gallons of waste from single-shell tanks and then fail to treat all the waste by 2047. It also wants to ensure Bechtel meets the court-ordered deadlines of 2023 to begin vitrifying low-activity waste and 2036 to start treating high-activity material.
Observers View Talks Warily
The outlook for a breakthrough “looks grim to me,” said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge, a citizens group that is a frequent critic of DOE environmental efforts at Hanford.
“The parties were unable to reach agreement in the last go-around, leading the federal court to set new deadlines in 2016” for issues concerning tanks and the Waste Treatment Plant, Carpenter said in a Thursday email.
Because the WTP lacks capacity to convert much of the 56 million gallons of tank waste to glass, DOE is anxious to look at alternatives such as grouting the material, Carpenter said. “Meanwhile, there is no comprehensive plan that DOE is offering, giving the stakeholder community any kind of sense of how many tanks would end up being grouted,” and how much waste might be left at Hanford, he added.
The Energy Department’s “Plan B seems to be a resort to defining the problem away by reclassifying tank waste as something other than HLW [high level waste],” Carpenter said.
Richland, Wash., Mayor Bob Thompson, was a bit more hopeful by telephone. The local mayor thinks ending up in court is tantamount to “playing a game that both sides lose.”
While the state has done well against the Energy Department in court, the courts don’t appropriate money for Hanford cleanup, Thompson said. The job falls to Congress.
One champion of funding for the Office of Environmental Management and Hanford, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), has already announced plans to retire, Thompson said. Another supporter of Hanford funding, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), will not remain in Congress forever, he added. So the parties must take advantage of the fat funding-levels — $2.4 billion for Hanford in fiscal 2019 – while they can, he added.
They also should try to reach mutually agreeable cost-effective solutions that seldom result from protracted court battles, Thompson added. Thompson has served on Richland City Council since the 1990s, and altogether has served about eight years as mayor. He is active in the Energy Communities Alliance, an organization that advocates for communities that border DOE sites.