Washington state Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon said Monday she would retire at the end of this month.
Ecology is the state regulator for the U.S. Department of Energy’s sprawling Hanford Site through a variety of permits including the dangerous waste, or site-wide, permit.
Bellon announced her pending retirement after 25 years as a state employee and nearly seven as head of the environmental agency.
“Arriving at this choice has been bittersweet, but I’m confident that it’s the right time for me to make a professional and personal change,” she said in a press release. After reconnecting with family and friends, “I then intend to dust off my law degree” and go into private practice focusing on environmental and policy issues, she added.
Prior to becoming director in 2013, Bellon managed Ecology’s Water Resources Program. She joined Ecology in 2010 as deputy director of the water program.
She previously served as a state assistant attorney general for 15 years, focusing on water law and other environmental legal issues.
“Maia has been a resolute leader who has made decisions based on science and data, listened to impacted communities and worked tirelessly to protect our state’s water, air and lands,” Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said in the press release.
At some point, the governor will appoint either a new director or an acting director, said Ecology spokesman Randy Bradbury. Polly Zehm is the agency’s deputy director. Cabinet appointments are made with the advice and consent of the Legislature.
Bellon’s retirement from state service should not derail new talks between the agency and the U.S. Department of Energy concerning treatment and disposal of radioactive tank waste and other environmental cleanup issues at Hanford. The site holds 56 million gallons of radioactive waste, and remains heavily contaminated, a legacy of decades of plutonium production for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Since October, the parties have met on several occasions to define the proper scope of the talks, the spokesman said. The goal of the talks is to address tank waste cleanup at Hanford.
In May, Bellon called for what she termed “holistic” talks on Hanford, including revised cleanup milestones under the so-called Tri-Party Agreement between the state, DOE, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
An industry observer in Washington state said while Bellon is devoted to Hanford site cleanup, she sometimes harbored unrealistic ideas of how much funding Congress is willing to budget for the program. Hanford’s Office of River Protection and the Richland Operations Office together received $2.4 billion for fiscal 2019 – roughly one-third of the entire budget for the 16 sites managed by DOE’s nuclear cleanup office. But Bellon seems to think Hanford can squeeze a few billion dollars more out of appropriators every year, the source said by telephone Tuesday.
Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program employs between 70 and 80 staffers. For the agency’s 2017-2019 biennial budget, the program accounted for $28 million of the agency’s $496 million in funding.
The program’s scope extends beyond Hanford, Bradbury said. It also regulates other sites with radioactive and hazardous chemical waste in Washington that aren’t part of the Hanford cleanup. Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program
It regulates temporary storage of mixed waste and ultimate closure of the Framatome nuclear fuel production facility in Richland. The plant provides fuel products and related components for nuclear power plants.
The Ecology Department regulates, under a state permit, treatment, storage, and disposal of mixed waste at Perma-Fix Northwest, located on 35 acres next to Hanford. Its jurisdiction also extends to US Ecology’s 100-acre waste landfill site in the center of Hanford that can take low-level radioactive waste.
It also permits and regulates storage and disposal of dangerous and mixed waste the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bradbury said.
