Members of the Hanford Advisory Board said Wednesday they should have a voice in the Department of Energy’s plans to diversify the panel that provides policy recommendations on cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state.
During an online meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), many members said they want to provide input on any term-limit plan and dislike specifics being dictated by DOE.
While Hanford’s top DOE manager said the agency seeks to “revitalize” the Hanford Advisory Board, some members were skeptical.
“The structure of the Board should be determined collaboratively,” according to draft advice discussed during the Wednesday meeting. DOE managers said in January they would take “unilateral actions” to restructure the board, HAB said in the document.
“DOE intends to accomplish this restructuring by strictly applying membership term limits and by encouraging the identification of membership candidates reflecting the local Hanford area population diversity,” according to the draft.
The advisory panel was still working on its new member policy Thursday and the final version is apt to be “slightly different,” said Liz Mattson, a HAB member from the advocacy group Hanford Challenge via email.
“Give us some time,” said HAB member Bob Suyama. Basically, most members want to see big changes paused while input is sought from not only DOE but the other members of the Tri-Party Agreement on Hanford cleanup —— the state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
A more collaborative result would be “a path forward everybody can support,” Suyama said.
A number of members voiced concern over the idea of forcing out some members after they have served six years, which Gerry Pollet and others said is enough time to accumulate some expertise about the site.
Pollet raised concerns that DOE is not looking to enforce term limits across the board, but mostly on public-interest groups represented on the current 32-member advisory board. The end result, he said, would be to reduce the number of women on the panel — at least partly thwarting the concept of diversity.
Brian Vance, DOE’s top manager at Hanford, said the agency would review that concern. The DOE wants to have the Hanford Advisory Board reflect the makeup of the Tri-Cities and surrounding communities, including tribal nations. A couple of panelists noted Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm met with tribal leaders during a recent visit to the region.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management first raised the issue of revamping the HAB during December 2021 in the closing months of the Donald Trump administration.
