Wash. State University to Oversee Hanford Artifacts
WC Monitor
5/8/2015
Mission Support Alliance has awarded a subcontract to Washington State University Tri-Cities for professional curatorial and archivist services, plus storage, of the Department of Energy’s collection of Hanford artifacts and archive materials. The university will make the items available for research, education and public exhibitions. Items range from the desk that Enrico Fermi used at Hanford during the Manhattan Project to first-of-a-kind equipment developed at the site. “The collection contains Hanford’s most significant and unique objects from the Manhattan Project and Cold War era,” said Colleen French, national park program manager for DOE at Hanford. Mission Support Alliance awarded the subcontract after a competitive bid. The initial contract runs through the current fiscal year and options for four one-year renewals. The potential value of the contract has been calculated through September 2018 at $809,330.
DOE and Mission Support Alliance have been scouring Hanford buildings over the last two years to make sure that historical items are saved to tell the story of Hanford’s place in world history from World War II through the Cold War. The collection of items, including those curated through the CREHST museum before its closure, now includes 1,600 objects and 3,000 historical photos. “The real value of the collection lies in its interpretive and educational potential – areas in which the university holds specific expertise,” said Bill Johnson, Mission Support Alliance president.
The new contract will offer a chance for interpretation and education programs, public exhibits, research by students and professors, and symposiums. “As we look ahead to the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, WSU-TC will be an educational partner with unique capabilities and expertise,” French said. “With this collection, they will develop a fundamental understanding about Hanford history that will be a real asset as interpretive and educational programs are developed for students of all ages.”
University Working to Develop Repository Space
WSU is working on plans for 10,000 square feet of space for the artifacts and archives, said Michael Mays, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Tri-Cities branch. It likely will be privately built near the university’s north Richland campus and then leased by the university. The university is required to provide repository space that meets federal requirements for temperature, humidity control, security, fire protection and lighting. The local branch campus will draw on expertise within the statewide WSU system, but also will need to hire locally. It plans to hire a joint library director and curator and also create a two-year visiting position to work on the collection and catalog it, Mays said.
The university also will hire an assistant director for the Hanford History Project, which now will include both the university’s ongoing oral history project and work with the Hanford artifacts. “This sets the stage for the history of the Hanford Site to become a signature program for WSU-TC and yet another draw for visitors to the Manhattan Project National Historical Park,” Mays said. “[We] have lots of ideas for how to use the collection to expand the public’s understanding of one of the most transformative periods in human history.”
Collection Includes Item from Site Construction Camp
Some of French’s favorite items in the collection are those retrieved from excavation of the trash pits for the Hanford construction camp, which housed 50,000 Manhattan Project workers. Soda bottles, tin cans, cold cream jars and toys connect the story of Hanford back to the people who created it, she said. She also likes the hand-painted wooden signs she has helped save from buildings set to be demolished. Painters, each with a signature style, created signs that gave safety instructions, operating instructions and information on such mundane topics as where to pick up lunch. They are works of art, she said. The collection extends to industrial equipment used at Hanford, like a remote manipulator arm and early radiation survey meters, and everyday items that workers likely took for granted such as a fire blanket kept handy on the wall in a metal case.
Work will start with moving about 40 percent of the Hanford collection out of storage at Hanford by the end of September, Mays said. Some storage space is available on campus. The remainder of the artifacts should be in WSU’s care by the end of September 2016. “The hope is down the road we are able to build through some sort of collaboration a dedicated exhibition space on campus,” Mays said. It would display rotating exhibits of the collection and traveling exhibits would be made available to other institutions. In the meantime, WSU will find space to display some of the material on its Richland campus. This is an ideal time to evaluate the history of Hanford and the role it played on the world stage, Mays said. It takes some decades after events to bring the past into focus and put it in perspective, he said.
With Hanford-related projects already being done at the Richland campus, local university officials are working toward being named a Hanford Center of Research and Education.Researchers would be able to examine the artifacts and the archival material, including photographs, reel-to-reel film and bound editions of Hanford newspapers. “This is an opportunity for WSU Tri-Cities to be a focal point for research,” Mays said. There also may be opportunities to work with WSU Press on new books covering scientific, cultural or historical Hanford topics.
Wash. State Regulators Stress Need for Adequate Funding
WC Monitor
5/8/2015
More delays need to be avoided with cleanup work at Hanford 25 years behind schedule, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology. As Department of Energy officials at Hanford prepare to finalize their requested budget for Fiscal Year 2017, the state is recommending strategies for acquiring Hanford’s portion of the DOE environmental cleanup budget. “Budget [is] the biggest factor affecting cleanup today,” said John Price, the state Tri-Party Agreement section manager, at a recent Hanford meeting. He cited a 2012 DOE Office of Planning and Budget finding that estimated Hanford cleanup has fallen 25 years behind DOE’s schedule. “That is because for about 20 years the appropriated budget has been less than needed to comply with environmental regulations,” he said.
Hanford officials need to support adequate funding not just for Hanford but for other cleanup sites across the nation, said Jane Hedges, manager of the state Nuclear Waste Program, in a letter to Hanford DOE leaders. DOE has developed a schedule for sites to ship their transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for disposal, with Hanford’s transuranic waste scheduled to be shipped there after waste from other sites. Officials said Hanford has other work to do in the meantime. Other sites not only need adequate money to keep to their shipment schedules and avoid delays tp Hanford’s eventual shipments, but additional funds could help them ship their waste sooner, Hedges said.
Hanford has 20,000 containers of waste waiting to be treated and disposed of either at Hanford or New Mexico, depending on what surveys determine they contain. About 700 containers are in above-ground storage and are already deteriorating. Far more, 12,500 containers, were temporarily buried and are degrading below ground, according to Hedges. The state of Washington also supports increased money to get WIPP operating again so Hanford waste could be disposed of sooner, ending the threat the waste poses to human health and the environment, the Hedges said.
Infrastructure Costs Growing
As cleanup work is delayed at Hanford, costs to maintain infrastructure is increasing, according to the state. “Ecology is concerned about such repairs and replacements reducing funds for managing wastes,” Hedges said. Aging water lines in central Hanford already have multiple leaks of hundreds of thousands of gallons per year, which can potentially move contamination downward into groundwater. Three aging former processing plants will need to have roofs replaced to keep precipitation from infiltrating into the highly contaminated facilities, Hedges said. The REDOX, PUREX and B Plant have no scheduled demolition date.
Delaying cleanup also increases costs as the cleanup becomes more difficult, Hedges said. Much of the cleanup along the Columbia River at Hanford is nearly complete. But central Hanford still has 1,000 buildings or facilities standing, including 400 that are contaminated with radioactive material or hazardous chemicals. Central Hanford also has about 1,000 sites where soil is contaminated, including ditches filled with clean soil to prevent contamination from being spread by the wind or other means. “There are an increasing number of incidents of plants and animals intruding into buildings and soil waste sites, like the ditches,” according to Hedges. Spreading contamination creates larger areas that must be cleaned up and more waste that must be disposed. “Ecology encourages U.S. DOE to identify scheduling and budgeting approaches that would clean up some waste sites and facilities earlier that currently planned,” Hedges said.
Over the last 25 years Hanford workers have demonstrated they can perform high hazard work and do it safely, Price said, but it is DOE’s responsibility to invest in worker protection, such as managing chemical vapors at the tank. “Ecology agrees that protecting workers to ensure a safe cleanup should be the highest priority for the Hanford budget,” Hedges said.
