Staff Reports
WC Monitor
10/10/2014
The state of Washington and the Department of Energy have each filed motions asking the federal court to intervene in the 2010 Hanford consent decree and set new milestones after they failed to reach agreement by an Oct. 5 deadline. “While the department and the State of Washington share the common objective of completing a successful tank waste cleanup mission at Hanford, we are disappointed that the parties could not agree on a reasonable, achievable path forward,” DOE said in a statement. Gov. Jay Inslee said he appreciated the high priority that Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has placed on Hanford environmental cleanup. But “the simple fact is the Department of Energy has failed to meet important deadlines,” he said. “We need much stronger accountability.”
DOE earlier told the state it would miss all the remaining deadlines for building and starting to operate the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, including having the plant at full operation in 2022. The state and DOE both now propose that some waste be treated starting in 2022, but all parts of the plant might not be operating until 2031. DOE also only had 13 of the 16 C Farm single-shell tanks emptied at the end of fiscal 2014.
A decision by an Eastern Washington District U.S. Court judge is not likely for four months, at the earliest. “It is critical that this not languish in the courts and that an achievable, realistic, fundable plan is finalized,” said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). “As decisions are made, long-awaited details about costs, schedules and trade-offs must be clearly and fully explained.” A proposed briefing schedule filed in federal court requested that the state and federal government have until Jan. 16 to file legal briefs, with arguments in court possibly to be held the week of Jan. 26. It also indicated that the state of Oregon would be filing a brief in the case in support of the state of Washington. “We hope there is an expeditious resolution of this matter,” said Mark Whitney, DOE acting environmental management assistant secretary in a message. “In the near term, the department will continue to move forward to begin treating tank waste at Hanford.”
All Hanford Obligations Need to be Considered, Locals Say
The Tri-Cities community will feel the greatest impact from returning decision making to the court, said Gary Petersen, vice president of Hanford programs for the Tri-City Development Council. The court’s singular focus will be on the tanks and vitrification plant, Petersen said. But there are other risks at Hanford that need to be addressed, including the sludge in the K West Basin not far from the Columbia River. If the court requires more money to be spent on projects at the tank farms and the vitrification plant, the rest of Hanford cleanup could suffer, Petersen said. “Any agreement and resulting budget requests must not only consider new commitments (at the tank farms and vit plant) but also existing legal obligations at all Hanford projects,” Hastings said. “I’m hopeful that all parties will focus on activities that actually accomplish cleanup rather than stop-gap measures that could keep tank waste at Hanford longer and slow work elsewhere.”
During negotiations important work has continued at Hanford, and DOE will not lose its focus on making steady progress on work in addition to that involving tank waste, said David Huizenga, formerly the nation’s top DOE environmental management official. Although he has moved to the National Nuclear Security Administration, the energy secretary requested he continue leading consent decree negotiations.
State Wants Significant Number of New Milestones, New Double-Shell Tanks
The state is proposing a much-expanded list of more than 100 new milestones and other requirements to prevent future delays and make sure DOE continues progress toward meeting the long-term legal schedule for emptying tanks and treating waste. “We must have specificity, accountability and enforceability for the federal cleanup,” said Bob Ferguson, Washington state attorney general. The milestones would help ensure all parts of the vitrification plant are operating by a new proposed deadline of 2031, with additional treatment capacity on line the next year, according to the state. Treatment of low activity waste would be required to start in 2022.
Because of the delays in treating waste, the state wants new double-shell tanks built. It has asked the court to require new tanks with a capacity of 4 million gallons that would be operational by 2022.If DOE does not have an alternate approved plan for additional tank capacity by 2019, it would be required to have an additional 4 million gallons tank capacity operational by 2024. The additional four-to-eight tanks are needed to continue emptying single-shell tanks on the state’s proposed new schedule, the state said. It wants the court to require DOE to have 50 percent of the waste out of single shell tanks by 2031. It also wants the court to set additional requirements for DOE to file reports and make notifications to the court. “The need for further accountability measure is shown by the manner in which Energy’s Waste Treatment Plant project came off the rails within 13 months of the consent decree’s entry,” the state said in a court document. “Energy provided no clue of the magnitude of pending schedule issues in its reporting under the 2010 decree.”
DOE Wants to Hold Off on Setting Milestones Until Tech. Issues Are Resolved
DOE is asking the court to take an approach nearly opposite to that requested by the state. It asks the court to set near-term milestones, but to wait to set longer-term milestones until technical issues are resolved to give confidence deadlines can be met. Until technical issues are worked through, DOE will not be able to prepare a new cost and schedule for the project, the agency has said. DOE’s proposal to the court provides an achievable and realistic path to meet the goals of the consent decree, Huizenga said.
DOE’s court filing largely parallels the proposed amendment to the consent decree DOE released at the end of March. The DOE filing calls for the vitrification plant to begin operating in phases, with low-activity radioactive waste being treated at the plant in 2022. That would allow DOE to make progress in treating waste for disposal as soon as possible and also would free up space in double-shell tanks needed to hold the waste emptied from single shell tanks until it can be treated. In the meantime, DOE would continue to work through technical issues on treating high-level radioactive waste, Huizenga said. DOE is committed to building a facility to blend, sample and stage waste to make sure the vitrification plant’s Pretreatment Facility receives a feed of uniform waste and can reliably treat it, he said, which would address part of the technical issues. It also is addressing issues with more testing, including full-scale testing of systems to keep waste mixed in tanks in the vit plant.
DOE also proposes that the court revise deadlines for the C Tank Farm, giving DOE until the end of 2015 to empty two of the tanks. How to proceed with the third tank remains uncertain because it may have leaked in the past and the new Mobile Arm Retrieval System vacuum setup being used in the tank is removing waste extremely slowly. A milestone would be set when DOE has selected a technology to empty the third tank. DOE would still be required to have 19 single shell tanks emptied by 2022, but the schedule would be revised to allow DOE to proceed more efficiently by installing all infrastructure before waste retrieval begins.
Cleanup Decisions ‘Should Not Solely be Made by Lawyers,” Hastings Says
Hastings called for the state and DOE to continue to discuss proposals with the Tri-Cities community and Congress so that everyone has a full understanding of what any final agreement would mean for not just the tank farms and vitrification plant, but also the rest of Hanford and other DOE cleanup sites. “Cleanup decisions of this magnitude should not solely be made by lawyers behind closed doors with details provided to the public only after it is too late to provide input,” he said. Since the matter is going to federal court, both sides should use this as a fresh opportunity for renewed focus on their shared goals for Hanford cleanup, he said.
The above article has been modified to correct an initial error that stated that DOE had failed to empty waste from 13 of the 16 C Farm single-shell tanks at the end of fiscal 2014. DOE did empty the waste from the 13 tanks by the end of FY 2014. WC Monitor regrets the error.
