Penalty As Much As $10,000 Per Week
Staff Reports
WC Monitor
10/17/2014
The Environmental Protection Agency has begun to fine the Department of Energy up to $10,000 for each week it fails to start moving radioactive sludge away from the Columbia River at Hanford. The Tri-Party Agreement required DOE to begin removing sludge from the K West Basin by Sept. 30. DOE missed that milestone, and on the day of the milestone proposed an extension to an undetermined date. The EPA sent a letter to DOE this week saying the request for an extension was denied and that fines are being assessed. The fine for the first week is $5,000, increasing to $10,000 for each additional week that DOE fails to start removing sludge. DOE has 15 days to start dispute resolution on whether it failed to meet the milestone. It also has 30 days to submit a written statement if it disputes EPA’s denial of its proposal to set new milestones.
DOE Blames Missed Milestone on Funding
The DOE letter requesting a new milestone says insufficient money in Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014 is to blame for the missed milestone. But EPA questioned why DOE had not proposed an extension until the milestone date, rather than when budgets were set in previous years. EPA already has extended milestones for sludge removal numerous times, said the letter signed by Dennis Faulk, EPA Hanford program manager. The milestone for having all the sludge out of the K West Basin originally was 2002 and that has been extended 13 years, EPA said. EPA denied the extension request because DOE failed to say how long the extension would be, failed to identify related timetables or schedules that would be affected and did not show good cause for the extension. Any one of those three issues would be enough to deny the extension, the EPA letter said.
DOE also has not demonstrated that Congress did not give it enough money for the K West Basin sludge removal, the letter said. After spending economic stimulus money between 2009 and 2011, DOE was a year ahead of schedule on work to start sludge removal, the EPA letter said. DOE said that since then congressional funding levels for the Richland Operations Office have been below the administration’s request due to sequestration in fiscal 2013 and because Congress failed to pass a budget in fiscal 2014. The EPA letter also said that DOE has not attempted to reach agreement with EPA on adjustments to the planned work or milestones as the Tri-Party Agreement requires when money budgeted by Congress is not enough to meet the milestone. “EPA has consistently made clear to DOE EPA’s expectation that sludge removal work be funded and proceed,” the letter said. “EPA has identified sludge removal as one of the highest Hanford cleanup priorities.”
Now the sludge constitutes “a lot of radionuclides along the river” and is one of the more immediate risks at Hanford, said Gary Petersen, vice chairman of Hanford projects for the Tri-City Development Council. It costs DOE $20 million a year to watch over the sludge in underwater containers, according to TRIDEC. DOE has called the sludge the largest source of radioactivity remaining along the Columbia River.
DOE Says It Can’t Propose New Milestone Because of Funding Uncertainty
In December DOE plans to finish the exterior of an annex being built at the K West Basin to transfer sludge out of the basin. Progress to date has included removing the knockout pot sludge, completing testing of the sludge full-scale integrated retrieval system and closing Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board issues. Removing the knockout pot sludge does not count toward the Tri-Party Agreement milestone that was missed. Engineering also has been completed to support transportation of the sludge containers to T Plant in central Hanford and for sludge storage equipment.
DOE notified EPA in June that it expected to miss the Sept. 30 milestone to start removing sludge from the basin, which it followed up with the letter Sept. 30 requesting an extension. DOE is not in a position to propose a new milestone because of funding uncertainty in the fiscal year that started Oct. 1 and beyond, the DOE letter said. The fiscal year started with a continuing resolution that temporarily keeps funding near the past year’s level for the K Basin sludge project. The administration’s 2015 budget request for the sludge would have increased spending there about $5 million. DOE said then that the budget request included the resources the Richland Operations Office needed to continue making progress on cleanup and that removing contaminated sludge from near the river would continue to be a focus.
In the Sept. 30 letter to EPA, DOE said the money for constructing the annex to transfer sludge and the container system was underfunded by $20 million under the budget request. That would cause an 18-month to two-year delay to the start to sludge retrieval and shipment. A new milestone may be determined after DOE has a budget set for all of fiscal 2015 and budget levels through fiscal 2018 have been established, DOE told EPA. In the meantime it would continue on construction on the annex and purchasing equipment based on anticipated funding levels.
