The Department of Energy first discovered more contaminated soil under Building 324 at the Hanford Site in Washington state last August and suspended work on stabilizing the structure in April, DOE said this month in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The timeline was laid out in a July 5 letter to David Einan, a Superfund cleanup manager for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10, from Thomas Teynor, acting assistant manager for DOE’s Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site.
Treynor was responding to a June 22 letter from Einan, who said DOE’s Office of Environmental Management did not consult with EPA about the decision to suspend work. EPA is concerned the decision could stretch cleanup beyond agreed-to deadlines.
Last month DOE publicly said it halted Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup’s work at the 324 Building, where workers are temporarily keeping the structure intact in order to use remotely-controlled equipment to dig up highly-radioactive soil several feet below the structure’s B-cell, located only 1,000 feet from the Columbia River.
The additional contaminated soil, found outside the planned excavation site designated 300-296, was discovered on Aug. 29, 2022, DOE said in its July 5 letter. “Within 48 hours of confirmation, DOE notified EPA of the discovery” and has “held a multitude of meetings,” with EPA. Around 2018, DOE developed plans to install equipment to cut through the floor of the building’s B-Cell and remotely excavate highly-radioactive soil located six-to-12-feet beneath the floor while minimizing risk to workers.
The floor has not yet been cut to allow excavation, a DOE spokesperson said by email Tuesday.
But it was not until April of this year that DOE and its Amentum-led cleanup contractor at the plateau stopped doing certain structural work on the 324 Building. At the time, personnel from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory were evaluating data about the contaminated soil, according to DOE’s letter.
The EPA, along with DOE and the state of Washington, are the three signees of the Tri-Party Agreement that governs cleanup at the former plutonium production site.
EPA was not on board with the decision to suspend work, an agency spokesperson said Monday in an email response to Exchange Monitor.
Under the Tri-Party Agreement, DOE has a milestone to remove the contaminated soil by 2025 and take down the 324 Building by 2030, the EPA spokesperson said.
“When new information is discovered that may affect the performance of a prior remedial decision, we expect DOE to share that information with EPA in a timely manner and to comply with the terms of the Tri-Party Agreement and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act process” for changes, Einan said in an earlier April letter to Teynor.
