Remaining Hanford Costs Tagged at $107.7B
The remaining cleanup costs at the Hanford Site plus some limited long-term stewardship come to $107.7 billion, according to the 2016 Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule and Cost Report. The estimate a year ago was $110.2 billion. The report has been a requirement of the Tri-Party Agreement for the last six years to provide a foundation for preparing federal budget requests and for informational briefings to tribal governments and Hanford stakeholders. It also provides information to serve as a basis for budget and work scope discussions with Hanford’s regulators — the state of Washington and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The latest report shows remaining costs for the Richland Operations Office at $52.7 billion, down from $53.6 billion a year ago, and Office of River Protection costs at $55 billion, down from $56.6 billion a year ago. However, until a new cost and timeline baseline is created for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, the report reflects the previous baseline for a plant that was expected to be at full operation in 2022. Even under the most aggressive forecast, that has been pushed back by more than a decade The report also is based on budgets compliant with legal and regulatory requirements, which puts budgets for five years between now and 2038 at $3 billion or more. The Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 budget request for Hanford Site operations is $2.3 billion.
However, some of the peaks and valleys in annual budgets have been smoothed out since the 2015 life-cycle report, which had spending topping $4 billion in fiscal 2019. Under a compliant funding scenario, cleanup would be largely completed in 2060. The $107.7 billion total includes $4.8 billion for long-term stewardship through 2090. Spending would remain at $2.5 billion or above through fiscal 2045. Then it would drop below $1 billion for fiscal 2049 and later years.
The Hanford Advisory Board said in earlier advice to the Tri-Party agencies on the life-cycle reports that if budgets remain at their current levels, the completion dates could be extended out an additional 20 to 30 years. EPA replied that the compliant budget numbers in the report illustrate for readers the annual budget shortfalls. The report gives an annual account of increases and decreases in estimated project costs. However, DOE is changing the way it allocates infrastructure and site-wide services, making year-to-year comparisons difficult. Several individual project cost estimates are lower because infrastructure costs are being removed and added to a separate budget category, which is shown as increasing by $5 billion.
