Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
2/2/2015
With an overall Fiscal Year 2016 budget request for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management set at $5.82 billion, roughly matching enacted levels, DOE’s cleanup program is poised to reach “major achievements” in the coming year, acting Assistant EM Secretary Mark Whitney said in a call with reporters today. The FY’16 request, unveiled today, includes significant funding increases for Hanford’s Office of River Protection and the Savannah River Site but would cut funding below enacted levels at most other sites. “With the release of today’s budget request we can all look forward, I believe, to future successes in the Environmental Management program,” Whitney said. “Boosted by this budget request, EM is really setting itself up for major achievements across complex in FY’16.”
The Department hopes to complete several high-profile goals in the next fiscal year, Whitney emphasized. That includes resuming waste emplacement at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (see related story). At Hanford, the Plutonium Finishing Plant is expected be demolished to slab on grade “by the end of FY’16,” Whitney said. Construction of Savannah River’s Salt Waste Processing Facility is set for completion by the end of 2016. At Oak Ridge, the K-27 former gaseous diffusion plant is slated for demolition in FY’16. The request also supports the transfer of Los Alamos National Laboratory cleanup management from the National Nuclear Security Administration to EM, he said. “I have the utmost confidence that our federal and contractor workforce will continue to display their dedication and focus to complete this work safely and efficiently,” Whitney said.
$202 Million Boost at ORP to Fund Low Activity Waste Efforts
Hanford’s Office of River Protection saw the largest increase, with a $202 million increase over enacted levels to a FY’16 request of $1.41 billion. The increase largely is set aside for supporting design of the Waste Treatment Plant’s Low Activity Waste Pretreatment System as well as efforts to support direct feed from the tank farms to the LAW facility. “By directly feeding low activity waste from the tanks into a pretreatment system where we don’t see technical issues being a problem in the low activity waste treatment facility at WTP we are confident we can begin making glass and treating waste in 2022,” Whitney said. “We want to focus on getting waste processed at Hanford, the vast majority of the waste in the tanks is low activity waste. Since we don’t have the technical issues associated with that waste we want to get going on that while we work to really get the technical issues resolved related to pretreatment and high-level waste issues.”
Cuts Come Again to Richland
However, Hanford’s Richland Operations Office saw the largest cut, totaling $93 million, for an FY’16 request level of $914 million. The FY’15 request also called for the same funding level, but the omnibus funding measure passed by Congress in December went above the request to reach an enacted level of slightly over $1 billion. According to DOE’s FY ’16 request, “the Richland budget request is designed to maintain Richland safe operations, Hanford site-wide services, groundwater remediation, Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition, K West Basin sludge removal progress , as well as complete the bulk of River Corridor closure remediation except for the 618-10/11 burial grounds, Building 324 and its associated waste site, and the 100 K Area. Cleanup work is accomplished while maintaining safe and compliant waste management, decontamination and decommissioning, and groundwater capabilities in the Central Plateau.”
Oak Ridge Sees $65.4 Million Cut
Defense environmental cleanup funding for work at Oak Ridge was cut $65.4 million in the FY’16 request below the FY’15 enacted level, to a proposed total of $365.6 million. The request would support continued demolition work at the K-27 and K-31 former gaseous diffusion plants, support for a proposed mercury stormwater treatment facility at Outfall 200 and funding for the proposed direct shipments of uranium-233 to the Nevada National Security Site for disposal. “The decrease from the FY 2015 Enacted level is attributed to reduced activities related to the Sludge Processing Facility Build Out line item construction project; and the completion of the K-25 building demolition project,” according to a DOE brief on the FY’16 budget request.
Cleanup at Idaho Cut $38 Million
The Idaho National Laboratory’s cleanup programs also saw a significant cut in the FY’16 request, coming in $38 million below the enacted funding level of $405 million. In FY’16, work is expected to continue processing transuranic waste at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project, treating sodium bearing waste from Idaho’s tank farm and buried waste exhumation under the accelerated retrieval project. “The decrease from the FY 2015 enacted level is attributed to the anticipated completion of sodium bearing waste operations in FY 2016; and planned completion of facility upgrades at Ft. St. Vrain,” the DOE budget brief states.
