A number of nuclear cleanup sites would make due with less money under the Department of Energy budget plan for the next fiscal year.
On March 11, the agency rolled out the broad outlines of its fiscal 2020 budget, 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.
However, the requested amount is not dramatically less than the $6.6 billion sought by the administration for Environmental Management in fiscal 2019. Sources said this week they expect upcoming House and Senate energy appropriations bills to again increase funding above the DOE proposal.
In a budget in brief issued late March 15, the department offered some detail on the planned plus-ups and reductions for the federal fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The agency as of deadline Friday had not released budget justifications for its offices, which could drill further down to program-level spending.
The Office of River Protection, which oversees management of 56 million gallons of radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, 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.
The Donald Trump administration’s DOE budget request could be sending a message to the state of Washington that it should not assume Hanford is “going to get $2 billion forever,” an industry source said Thursday.
“Unfortunately, presidents on both sides of the aisle have proposed funding cuts that would slow down Hanford cleanup,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), a House appropriator whose district covers Hanford, told the Tri-City Herald. “And just as I have worked before with my colleagues through the appropriations process to restore funding, I will do so again.”
Completion of ETTP work is targeted for 2020. In December, the APTIM-North Wind Construction team won a $92 million contract from DOE to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s energy and water subcommittee is chaired by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a major supporter of Oak Ridge and Y-12. In addition, a member of the corresponding House Appropriations subcommittee, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), indicated through a spokesperson he will seek more Oak Ridge funding.
“As in years past, Congressman Fleischmann will continue to work in his capacity as a member of the Energy and Water appropriations subcommittee to ensure that the DOE and NNSA have sufficient funding levels to perform the essential science, technology, and national security work that takes places in Oak Ridge,” the spokesperson said by email.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry is scheduled to appear before the House subcommittee on Tuesday.
At the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the decontamination and decommissioning budget would be trimmed to $426 million, $50 million below the fiscal 2019 enacted level. Work would continue toward demolition of former uranium-enrichment plants and on construction of On-Site Waste Disposal Cells, which will hold material from generated from demolition of process buildings. (It was not entirely clear if figures for Portsmouth, Paducah, and Oak Ridge included money from the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning fund).
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico would receive $398 million, $5 million below the current enacted budget, to continue underground emplacement of transuranic waste. The budget includes $93 million toward construction of a new ventilation system to dramatically increase underground airflow.
A recent set of budget tables indicate WIPP would receive $56 million in defense cleanup money in fiscal 2020, down substantially from the almost $85 million in fiscal 2019 but more than the $51 million in fiscal 2018. That is due to a proposed reduction of about $29 million in its operations and maintenance budget.
Environmental remediation at the Idaho National Laboratory would be budgeted at $348 million, $96 million below the fiscal 2019 enacted level. The funding should complete retrieval of buried waste at the Accelerated Retrieval Project. The funds also support closure of the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project and continued shipment of contact-handled transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The funds would also support startup and operation of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit to process 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing waste.
At other DOE properties:
- The Paducah Site in Kentucky would receive $277 million, $3 million above the fiscal 2019 enacted level, for continued environmental remediation.
- The West Valley Demonstration Project in New York would receive $78 million, up from $75 million in the enacted level from 2019 as deactivation work nears completion on the Main Plant Processing Building.
- The Nevada National Security Site would receive $61 million, up $1 million from the prior year. This includes $35 million in defense cleanup funds, up from $33 million in the current fiscal year.
- The Separations Process Research Unit in New York state would receive $15.3 million in defense cleanup money, slightly more than the $15 million enacted for fiscal 2019 and far more than the less than $5 million issued in fiscal 2018. AECOM subsidiary URS has a completion contract that currently lists an expiration date at the end of the month.
