The Department of Energy is not caught directly in the partial federal government shutdown, but the Hanford Site in Washington state is still feeling some effects indirectly.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a Hanford regulator and one of the three signatories to the Tri-Party Agreement that governs cleanup at the former plutonium production complex. It has closed its Richland, Wash., office because it does not yet have a fiscal 2019 appropriation passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. While DOE received full-year funding in appropriations legislation signed in September, Trump has refused to approve any additional funding bills unless Congress approves over $5 billion for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The closure of the EPA office near Hanford has so far mostly raised issues related to administration and paperwork, said John Price, the Washington state Department of Ecology’s Tri-Party Agreement section manager. Ecology and DOE are the other parties to the Tri-Party Agreement.
However, if the shutdown drags on it could interfere with possible changes to the Tri-Party Agreement that all three parties must approve. The agreement is frequently updated. Among upcoming changes that could be considered are new milestones related to Hanford’s transuranic waste that will be packaged and shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
“We have, for example, delayed several weeks’ worth of permit meetings because EPA isn’t available,” said Washington Ecology spokesman Randy Bradbury. ”If the shutdown persists, it could start delaying cleanup decisions for both mixed low-level waste and transuranic mixed waste.”
The Richland EPA office also is responsible for oversight of the DOE environmental cleanup at the Idaho National Laboratory and some nongovernment Superfund sites in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.
Other Energy Department sites with areas deemed Superfund sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) are the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, the Paducah Site in Kentucky, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation said Thursday it has not felt any impact from the EPA shutdown thus far. Ultimately, however, the EPA, along with the state and DOE, must approve plans for a new on-site landfill at Oak Ridge for some chemical and low-level waste.
The Hanford Advisory Board also has been impacted by the partial government shutdown. The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires 30 days’ notice in the Federal Register in advance of board’s meetings, but Federal Register staff is caught in the partial shutdown. The board scheduled a meeting for Feb. 13-14 that was not announced in the Federal Register.
The board still plans a session, but is calling it an “administrative meeting” that will not involve any action, including approving advice, or recommendations, to DOE, the Department of Ecology, and EPA. The board approves advice by consensus, rather than majority vote, on major policy issues related to cleanup at Hanford.
The meeting has been shortened to a single day, Feb. 13, and will start at 8:30 a.m. at the Red Lion Hanford House. The agenda could include updates from DOE and its regulators, new member orientation, and reports from the board’s committees.
The advisory board has not had a full board meeting since September after the meeting in December was canceled because the first of two days fell on the national day of mourning for former President George H.W. Bush. Because the board met in Seattle in September, the last full board meeting near Hanford was in June. The board typically holds five full board meetings per year, mostly near Hanford.
