FY 2017 Budget Would Need to Double to Meet Requirements, Officials Say
WC Monitor
5/1/2015
The Fiscal Year 2017 budget for the Richland Operations Office at Hanford would need to double to meet environmental cleanup requirements, according to the Department of Energy. DOE Hanford officials presented budget information for public comment this week in advance of notifying DOE headquarters’ officials of Hanford budget needs for the fiscal year after next. The Office of River Protection did not release projected budget numbers at the meeting, saying they would be available later. The Richland Operations Office projected a need for $1.9 billion in FY 2017. For FY 2016, the Administration has requested $914 million for the Richland Operations Office. Both offices together typically receive about $2.2 billion annually. Jon Peschong, the deputy assistant manager for Richland Operations Office cleanup, outlined the work needed to be done there if FY 2017, but said the actual work tackled would depend on money available.
Money for river corridor cleanup would need to increase from the $108 million requested by the administration for next fiscal year to $403 million in FY 2017. Most river corridor cleanup is expected to be finished this fiscal year, but some high hazard projects would remain, including cleaning up the highly radioactive spill of cesium and strontium beneath the 324 Building near the Columbia River and just north of Richland. On a prioritized list of FY 2017 work prepared by DOE, the project was on the borderline for work that could be accomplished with a typical annual budget. Now the building over the spill protects it from precipitation that could carry it deeper toward groundwater. “We don’t think contamination beneath the building will migrate,” Peschong said. But Pam Larsen, speaking as a Richland resident rather than in her role as executive director of Hanford Communities, said underground water lines near the building have leaked twice in recent years. Water lines will remain in use as long as the building stands to provide fire protection. Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, raised the possibility that burrowing animals could spread contamination.
The $403 million budget for work near the Columbia River also would cover finishing cleanup of the 618-10 Burial Ground just north of Richland, where trucks backed up and dumped cans of radioactive research waste down pipes buried vertically in the ground. Work could be started on a similar defense waste burial ground, 618-11, which is near the Energy Northwest commercial nuclear power plant, but it is far down the prioritized list.
Request Would Only Cover Mission Need Statement for Capsule Transfer
The increased budget would only cover the initial document, the mission need statement, required for approval to move cesium and strontium capsules from underwater storage to dry casks. The capsules account for about a third of the radioactivity remaining at Hanford. Catastrophic risks need to be moved up the priority list, Pollet said. In 2014, the DOE Office of Inspector General said the building where the capsules are kept under water, the Waste Encapsulation Storage Facility, was the DOE facility at greatest risk in the case of a natural disaster beyond its design basis. A severe earthquake could leave DOE unable to keep the capsules in cooled water. Moving the capsules to dry storage will cost $85 million to $130 million, and the annual cost to maintain the capsules under water is $10 million.
Large Increase Also Needed for Central Cleanup
Another large increase in the fiscal 2017 budget would be for central Hanford cleanup for which the Richland Operations Office is responsible. Cleanup spending there, not including overhead costs, is proposed at $22 million in FY 2016 but at $390 million in FY 2017. The increase would allow the restart of cleanup work at the huge U Plant processing canyon to meet a Tri-Party Agreement milestone. Negotiations are underway between DOE and regulators on other legal milestones that come due this year or in the next few years but are likely to be missed. They include milestones to dig up, package and ship transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. They also include work to plan or build barriers over some underground waste tanks to prevent precipitation from carrying contamination in the soil deeper toward groundwater.
FY17 Work at ORP Could Include Completion of WTP LAW Facility
Work under the DOE Office of River Protection in FY 2017 could include completing construction of the Low Activity Waste Facility at the vitrification plant, said JD Dowell, deputy manager of the office. Commissioning of the facility, plus the Analytical Laboratory and about 20 support facilities at the vitrification plant, could begin. DOE is collecting comments on what the public believes Hanford budget priorities should be in FY 2017 to submit with the Hanford budget request that is sent to DOE officials in Washington, D.C. Comments are due by June 15 and may be emailed to [email protected].
DOE Working to Learn More About Soil Contamination Near K Reactors
WC Monitor
5/1/2015
More should be known this year about the extent of the radioactive contamination in soil within 400 yards of the Columbia River, the result of water that leaked or was disposed of from the Hanford K East Basin. It’s one of the remaining pieces of the puzzle of what lies beneath the ground near the former K East and K West Reactors. Much of the soil cleanup work has been finished near Hanford’s other plutonium-production reactors. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. workers will drill a borehole within 15 feet of the K East Reactor to assess the contamination that resulted from one or more leaks from the reactor’s basin that once was used to hold irradiated fuel. The soil there is anticipated to be highly contaminated with cesium and strontium. To prepare for drilling that borehole, CH2M Hill workers will start with a second borehole about 100 feet away between the reactor and the Columbia River. It is the site of an open-bottomed waste disposal crib where overflow water from the K East Basin was dumped into the ground.
CH2M Hill workers have not drilled into soil with highly radioactive contamination for several years, said Mark Cherry, CH2M Hill deputy vice president of soil and groundwater cleanup. The initial drilling will provide needed data about contamination in the soil there and also allow workers to practice using the same procedures needed for the higher risk borehole at the reactor. The contamination near the reactor came from a construction joint between the K East Reactor and its adjoining basin. Concrete was poured there to build the fuel discharge chute for dropping fuel from the reactor to the cooling basin. More than 15 million gallons of contaminated water is believed to have leaked there. After the Cold War, about 2,300 tons of fuel irradiated at N Reactor, was left in the K East Basin and nearby K West Basin after fuel processing was no longer being done at Hanford. As the unprocessed fuel corroded, highly radioactive sludge collected in the basins. The fuel has since been removed from the basins and the sludge vacuumed up and consolidated in the K West Basin. It remains in underwater containers while DOE prepares to transfer it to central Hanford, where it will be treated for disposal.
At least two boreholes will be needed for the next step of cleanup, assessing the level of soil contamination from K East Reactor activities, said Jon Peschong, Department of Energy deputy assistant manager for cleanup in central Hanford and near the Columbia River. Soil sampling already has been done and data has been collected from monitoring wells, but more complete information from the boreholes will be used to make decisions on soil cleanup. Temporary structures have gone up over the initial two borehole sites, with drilling to be done through openings in the top of the structures. A ventilation system will help with contamination control in the areas where potentially radioactive soil is handled and packaged. It also will help keep workers in protective gear cooler this summer. The disposal crib was dug up earlier and a layer of clean soil laid over the site. The drill at the crib site was expected to finish digging through the clean soil and start on the soil beneath late last week, according to CH2M Hill. “I’m excited to get going,” Cherry said.
The drill will go down to groundwater, believed to be about 100 feet deep, with samples collected every two feet to provide information about the extent and concentration of contamination. DOE and CH2M Hill are calling the initial drilling a mockup. Workers are wearing the same anti-contamination coveralls, gloves and powered air purifying respirator hoods they will need when they drill in the more contaminated soil closer to the reactor. Both boreholes are expected to be completed before October, with the second borehole planned to be about 120 feet deep. The casings for the boreholes may be left in place to be used for monitoring wells.
K Reactors Last to be Cocooned
Much of the contaminated soil near the K East and K West Reactors already has been dug up. But some of it Hanford workers cannot go after because it is near facilities that are needed until the sludge is out of the K West Basin, Peschong said. The K East and K West Reactors are the last two Hanford reactors awaiting cocooning. The K East Reactor has been in surveillance mode since 2013, with much of it torn down and openings sealed up. When the K West Reactor also is ready to be put into long-term storage, a new form of cocooning is expected to be used at the same time for both. A steel shell is proposed to be built around what remains of each, topped with an angled roof to direct rainwater runoff away from adjacent soil waste sites. Six other Hanford plutonium production reactors along the Columbia River already have been cocooned to allow radiation in their cores to decay to more manageable levels over 75 years.
Hanford Officials Missed Out on Energy Conservation Incentive Payments
WC Monitor
5/1/2015
Hanford officials missed out on at least $190,500 in payments from incentive programs for energy conservation in recent years, according to an audit by the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General. The amount is from missed payments the audit was able to add up, but there were other savings opportunities auditors could not quantify, according to a report on the audit released this past week. “We found that the issues we observed at Hanford … occurred because of a lack of consistent focus on incentive programs or a lack of consistent follow-through by site personnel,” the report said.
Since the audit was conducted, the DOE Richland Operations Office at Hanford has worked with Mission Support Alliance to investigate ways to use energy efficiency incentive programs and to communicate information on incentives to other Hanford contractors, said Stacy Charboneau, manager of the DOE office, in a memo. DOE will work with its Hanford contractors and the Bonneville Power Administration to improve Hanford participation in BPA’s incentive program as a new two-year cycle for the program starts this fall, she said.
Audit Examined Seven Sites
The audit checked seven DOE sites to see if they had taken advantage of available energy incentive programs, as required for federal agencies under the national Energy Conservation Policy Act. It found that since 2010, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility had received $820,000 in energy incentives and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory had received $1.8 million. But Hanford and the Argonne National Laboratory based in Illinois had not taken full advantage of available incentives, the audit report said. Hanford did not apply for incentives for two new construction projects. The site could have received $63,000 in incentives through a BPA program to help reduce construction costs for its large commercial customers for energy efficiency measures. The audit found that Hanford could have used the program, which ended in 2011, for a groundwater treatment plant completed in June 2012. Hanford officials said submitting a proposal to BPA would not have been onerous, the audit report said.
In another instance, DOE expanded the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility in central Hanford in 2009, including installing an energy-efficiency pump. The amount of missed incentives through the BPA program could not be calculated because Hanford officials did not track the energy savings from the new equipment, the audit report said. Hanford did take advantage of some incentives for energy conservation in existing facilities, but not consistently, the audit report said.
Hanford has had an energy savings performance contract since 2008 that makes it eligible for about $127,500 in incentives for completed energy conservation measures, such as upgrades to heating, cooling and boiler equipment. “No one at Hanford completed or submitted the incentive application necessary to receive the incentives,” the audit report said. “This lack of follow-through by site personnel resulted in the site losing the entire incentive.” Employees at Hanford interviewed for the audit said they were aware of the available energy incentives and did not know why an application was not submitted.
