The Department of Energy is proposing a $417 million cut to funding for environmental remediation at the Hanford Site in Washington state, while boosting spending for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by $91 million.
On March 11, the agency rolled out the broad outlines of its fiscal 2020 budget plan, with nearly $6.5 billion planned for the Office of Environmental Management — down by over $700 million from this year’s enacted $7.2 billion. In a budget in brief issued Friday afternoon, DOE offered more detail on the planned plus-ups and reductions for the federal fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
The Office of River Protection, which oversees management of 56 million gallons of radioactive tank waste at Hanford, would get $1.4 billion, slicing $181 million from the current funding level. The money would cover “continued construction, startup and commissioning activities at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, Balance of Facilities, Effluent Management Facility and Analytical Laboratory,” according to the budget in brief.
The Richland Operations Office would get $718 million for management of most other cleanup activities at Hanford, a massively contaminated former plutonium production complex in eastern Washington. That would cover a host of activities, including moving cesium and strontium capsules into dry storage and ongoing remediation of the 324 Building.
Washington state’s delegation to Congress, as it has in many years, will unquestionably press to increase funding levels at Hanford in upcoming House and Senate energy appropriations bills.
The same is likely for lawmakers in Tennessee, where Environmental Management funding for the Oak Ridge Site would fall by $217 million to $429 million. That would pay for work on the former uranium enrichment plant now called the East Tennessee Technology Park, along with mercury cleanup activities including preparing to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility.
Conversely, DOE wants to increase funding for liquid waste operations at Savannah River to $1.6 billion. The increase is intended to help prepare for the planned startup by December of the Salt Waste Processing Facility. The funding would also pay for work including construction on Saltstone Disposal Unit No. 7, design and early construction of the next two units, and design of a 10th unit.
