Local Business Group Questions Proposed FY16 Funding Cut
WC Monitor
3/13/2015
At a time that the Department of Energy’s overall budget is increasing, the administration’s budget requests for environmental cleanup have been decreasing, the Tri-City Development Council pointed out in a recent letter to members of the Washington state Congressional delegation. “DOE made commitments with several states when EM funding was $6.6 billion a year. Now EM is struggling to meet those commitments, and communities like ours are impacted as clean-up progress stretches out or becomes inefficient,” TRIDEC said. The proposed cut comes despite both houses of Congress repeatedly supporting the legal and moral obligations of the federal government to clean up Hanford and other sites, TRIDEC said. The cleanup budget request has declined as demands on the program are increasing, from the rising costs at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant to the need to honor international agreements for Savannah River’s MOX plant and the need to restart the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The proposed cut would come as federal projects might again face sequestration, following the relief negotiated for fiscal 2014 and 2015, TRIDEC said.
At Hanford the administration’s proposed budget would help with the increasing costs of the vitrification plant, work to start treating low-activity waste at the plant as soon as 2022 and better protection of workers from chemical vapors. But it appears to come at the expense of momentum to clean up the Hanford river corridor, TRIDEC said. Robbing the Richland Operations Office or other DOE sites across the nation to support the vitrification plant and tank farms is not the right answer, TRIDEC said. The Office of River Protection would get an increase of about $200 million under the administration’s budget request, but the proposed cut of almost $100 million to work along the Columbia River would undercut progress “and literally stop several of the high-priority risk reduction projects underway along the Columbia River,” TRIDEC said. “That would be a very unfortunate occurrence given the proximity of the Columbia River and the city of Richland to these last remaining high-rad waste sites, and the investments the Congress has already made in the engineering, design, training and preparations for this work to be completed,” it said.
The Department of Energy “should be loudly and proudly celebrating the tremendous success” river corridor cleanup, TRIDEC said. Some 321 buildings out of 331 have been decontaminated and demolished, 89 percent of 585 waste sites have been cleaned up and all of the regulatory milestones have been reached on time or ahead of schedule under Washington Closure Hanford, TRIDEC said. One milestone, for the 324 Building, was extended after a highly radioactive spill was found beneath it.
Group Calls for Additional Funding For River Corridor Cleanup…
The final completion of several important projects near the river would be delayed because of the proposed budget cut, costing more taxpayer dollars in the long run, TRIDEC said. It is requesting a $119.5 million increase to the fiscal 2016 budget for the Richland Operations Office. That would cover an increase of $25 million for the 324 Building, with an additional $15 million required in fiscal 2017 to complete decontamination and remove the radioactive contamination beneath the building over 18 months. Digging is proposed to be done with equipment placed within the building.
Halting or deferring work would cost an additional $5 million per year just to keep the building safe and with electric service. If radioactive materials are not removed, repairs to the roof and the structure of the building also would eventually be required to keep precipitation from reaching the contaminated hot cell that leaked radioactive cesium and strontium into the soil beneath the building, TRIDEC said. The cleanup of the contamination and spilled waste would greatly reduce the risk to the nearby Columbia River, and demolition of the building could be left for a future date, according to TRIDEC.
… And For Planned Manhattan Project Park
The additional money requested by TRIDEC also includes a $5 million increase to help support the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford. Some money is needed to get the park underway while DOE and National Park Service management plans are being developed, TRIDEC said. The $5 million could be spent on stabilization or rehabilitation of historic facilities planned to be featured in the park and infrastructure improvements needed to support many new visitors to the park.
The requested increase also would be used to move sludge stored underwater at the K West Basin to central Hanford and to move more than 1,900 cesium and strontium capsules to dry storage. They now are stored underwater in a deteriorating pool at the Waste Encapsulation Storage Facility. Some money also would be used to repackage and prepare 10,000 cubic meters of stored transuranic waste for eventual shipment to WIPP, addressing Washington state concerns about aged and possibly leaking containers.
TRIDEC Supports Proposed ORP Budget
TRIDEC supports the proposed increased budget for the tank farms and vitrification plant, but warned that an even larger increase would be required in fiscal 2017, plus more money for utilities, roads and securities to allow operations at the plant. About $41 million will be needed to implement recommendations to improve the tank farms’ vapor protection program in fiscal 2016 and the conservative management approach to vapor issues is expected to significantly slow work on single shell tank retrievals and erode productivity, TRIDEC said. Transferring $23 million from the vitrification plant’s budget this year to start work on the tank farm’s Low Activity Waste Pretreatment System to feed waste directly to the vitrification plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility has caused delays for the Pretreatment Facility, TRIDEC said.
The administration’s proposed increase of $179 million for the tank farms is “minimally adequate,” TRIDEC said. It would ramp up design activities for direct feed of low activity waste to the vitrification plant by 2022 as well as A and AX Farm waste retrievals. The administration request for the vitrification plant also is minimally adequate, including inflation costs and restoring the $23 million that was diverted to the tank farms this year, TRIDEC said.
PNNL Names New Director
WC Monitor
3/13/2015
The deputy director for science and technology at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Steve Ashby, has been named director of the lab. Battelle announced this week that the appointment will be effective April 1. He was picked to be the 12th lab director in PNNL’s 50-year history after a national search. Ashby succeeds Mike Kluse, who is retiring after eight years as PNNL director. Ashby, who has been deputy director since 2008, has been instrumental in integrating PNNL’s science and technology capabilities to address critical challenges in science, energy, the environment and national security, according to Battelle. "Steve’s expertise and passion fit well with the demands of the director position at PNNL," said Battelle President Jeff Wadsworth. Ashby has worked at DOE national laboratories for 31 of his 55 years, starting with summer internships at Sandia and Los Alamos, he said. “I tell students there is no better place to have a career than a national laboratory if they really want to do cutting edge science research that really matters to the nation,” he said. “We work on the most challenging problems that face our country and world.”
Ashby served previously as the deputy principal associate director for science and technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and held several leadership roles in its computation directorate. As deputy director at PNNL, he has led institutional strategic planning activities, managed an $80 million discretionary research portfolio and promoted laboratory-wide efforts to elevate PNNL’s standing in the scientific community. He also has overseen the laboratory’s technology commercialization, government relations and research integrity functions. “Steve was central to shaping PNNL’s vision,” said Patricia Dehmer, acting director of DOE’s Office of Science. He is widely recognized as a leader in computational science and has worked to advance it as a discipline throughout his career, according to PNNL. His research has included developing scalable numerical methods and software for the modeling of real-world challenges, such as groundwater contamination, on parallel computing systems. "Steve is a superb choice to lead PNNL, one of the most diverse laboratories in the DOE system," Dehmer said. “His scientific accomplishments, demonstrated leadership, and familiarity with the breadth of PNNL’s research programs make him well suited for this role.”
Kluse Leaving Lab ‘In Terrific Shape’
Kluse is leaving PNNL “in terrific shape,” Ashby said. Ashby’s challenge will be to continue to create an atmosphere in which researchers can be highly creative. He wants to knock down bureaucracy where possible and work for stable funding, so scientists and engineers can concentrate on their research, he said. “He fully understands PNNL’s mission, has a compelling vision for the future of the lab, and has developed strong relationships with senior leaders across DOE, key sponsors and the entire laboratory system,” Wadsworth said.
Ashby is a member and past chairman of the DOE National Laboratory Chief Research Officers Council and currently serves on DOE’s Laboratory Operations Board. He was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences and serves on the Science Policy Committee of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Ashby holds doctorate and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign and a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was elected as a fellow in 2013.
