President Donald Trump’s signature is the only thing standing between the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office and nearly $7.2 billion in funding for fiscal 2019. That would be the highest spending level for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management since fiscal 2005, when it received nearly $7.3 billion.
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted 377-20 to pass a three-bill appropriations “minibus” bill, which includes Energy Department funding for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The Senate on Wednesday had voted 92-5 in favor of the compromise package prepared by a House-Senate conference committee.
The roughly $7.2 billion for DOE cleanup operations is $53 million above the fiscal 2018 enacted level and $578 million above the administration ‘s request.
The agency must show what it can do with the extra cash, Energy Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Wednesday.
“We have the right budget,” Dabbar told the National Cleanup Workshop in Alexandria, Va., adding that just a few years ago the office was funded at $6.4 billion. If DOE can’t demonstrate it is putting the money to good use “it’s shame on us,” the energy undersecretary added.
The Trump administration had requested $6.6 billion for environmental management across 16 facilities around the nation, plus the office’s headquarters operations. It had not officially said Friday whether Trump would sign or veto the minibus, which would boost funding at the Hanford Site in Washington state and elsewhere.
Fortunately, the office headed since March by Assistant Secretary for Environmental management Anne Marie White is making measurable headway, Dabbar said. He noted 80 acres of land were recently transferred from the Portsmouth cleanup site in Ohio to the state for economic development. Land transfers show “we are in a completion mindset,” Dabbar said.
In a separate speech at the workshop, White said demolition of the Vitrification Plant at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state is virtually complete. Remediation at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in upstate New York should also wrap up this year.
Likewise, remediation of the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), a former uranium enrichment complex at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, should be largely complete in 2020, officials said during the gathering.
Package Ends Uranium Barter at Portsmouth
The appropriations package makes it official: The Energy Department will not barter excess government uranium in fiscal 2019 to fund environmental remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
The multiagency appropriations bill would provide over $841 million for DOE’s Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund, which pays for cleanup at three former gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Lawmakers boosted the portion of the fund designated for work at Portsmouth by $60 million above the Trump administration request, to $366 million, to offset suspension of the uranium barter program.
Remaining funding includes more than $6 billion for defense environmental cleanup and $310 million for non-defense environmental cleanup.
The Energy Department “shall not barter, transfer, or sell uranium in order to generate additional funding for Portsmouth cleanup that is in excess of the amount of funding provided in this Act,” the conferees agreed.
Along with $366 million for Portsmouth decontamination and decommissioning at $366 million for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, DOE would get $41 million for construction of the On-Site Waste Disposal Cell at the Piketon, Ohio, facility. That is the amount the administration proposed and incrementally more than the almost $39 million provided in 2018.
The Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state would get about $1.57 billion, far more than the $1.44 billion sought by the administration and slightly more than the $1.56 billion budgeted in fiscal 2018. Within funding for the office responsible for 56 million gallons of waste stored in tanks, the Waste Isolation and Treatment Plant gets $15 million, as requested and also more than the $8 million allotted for 2018.
Hanford’s Richland Operations Office will get $865 million, well above the $658 million sought by the administration and just above the $863 million allotted in 2018. The office oversees other cleanup operations at Hanford.
“The $342 million over what the Administration requested will ensure progress on important projects such as the 324 building and stabilization of PUREX Tunnel 2,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said in response to the final fiscal 2019 budget.
The highly radioactive 324 Building is within 1,000 feet of the Columbia River. One PUREX Plant waste storage tunnel partially collapsed in May 2017, and DOE has concluded that the second, longer tunnel is also at high risk of falling in.
Budget language also calls on DOE to submit a report within 60 days of enactment on the proposed Hanford Test Bed Initiative. The test bed is an effort to determine feasibility of retrieval and treatment of low-activity tank waste stored underground at the former plutonium production complex, which otherwise would be converted into a glass form at the on-site Waste Treatment Plant.
Contractor Perma-Fix Environmental Services has already conducted a proof-of-concept demonstration using 3 gallons of waste. That would be followed by a larger-scale test bed test of 2,000 gallons. The budget does not appear to provide any fiscal 2019 funding for the project.
The budget package includes $410 million for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, which is $10 million more than the $400 million enacted for 2018 and far above the $226 million in the administration request. That encompasses $76 million in construction funding for the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility, which had received $17 million for fiscal 2018, while the administration had requested only $11 million.
There is about 2 million pounds of mercury at the site and the facility will help address that, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) told the workshop Thursday. The current package should provide “consistent stable funding” for Oak Ridge and other sites, he said. Fleischmann served on the House-Senate appropriations conference committee this year.
The Savannah River Site in South Carolina is approved for about $1.39 billion in the upcoming fiscal year, up from the current level of $1.31 billion. The congressional figure is less than the $1.47 billion requested by the administration. Radioactive liquid tank waste is budgeted at about $697 million, up from $637 million in 2018, but less than the $806 million sought by the administration.
