Many members of the Hanford Advisory Board seemed taken aback Thursday by a Department of Energy proposal to add six more slots to the 32-member panel charged with drafting policy recommendations for cleanup of the former plutonium production facility in Washington state.
About a dozen Hanford Advisory Board members, who spoke during an online meeting, either questioned the wisdom of the move or expressed irritation at being left out of the loop so far on the expansion that could happen within a few months.
The proposal was announced Wednesday by DOE’s Hanford Site manager, Brian Vance during the opening of the two-day session. The board’s departing chair, Susan Leckband, said at the time the plan was news to her.
The announcement was “definitely out of the blue,” advisory board member and Hanford Challenge senior adviser Liz Mattson, said via email to Weapons Complex Monitor.
On Thursday, Stanley Branch, the DOE manager who serves as the deputy designated federal officer for the advisory board, provided some detail.
“We have also had some requests from local and regional communities” to expand the board, Branch said. “We are currently in the planning, strategy, logistics” phase and the actual expansion is likely months away, he said.
During his presentation, Branch said DOE was trying to reach out to certain interests — including tribal members, racial minorities, universities and farming interests that currently appear to be under-represented on the board.
Branch then offered to field questions and comments from advisory board members.
They had plenty.
It is “disturbing and inappropriate to do this in this manner,” said board member Gerald Pollet, who said the current makeup of the board is a delicate balance that has been negotiated over years, and includes at-large members to encourage inclusion from diverse groups. Polet is a former state lawmaker and current executive director of Heart of America Northwest, an advocacy group for Hanford cleanup.
Other members chided DOE for seemingly springing a major change on the board without input from the current members. One questioned if the Department of Energy wants to pack the board to make the panel less independent. Another said increasing the membership would make it more difficult to secure a quorum for meetings – and asked whether the board’s budget would be increased 20% once members are allowed to travel again.
At the invitation of Leckband, staff members from the Washington state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – which with DOE participate in the Tri-Party Agreement for Hanford cleanup – voiced their own misgivings.
“There has been no discussion to date,” on this proposal aside from a passing mention by DOE during a recent interagency meeting between federal and state public information officers, Ecology spokesman Randy Bradbury said.
“What are we trying to achieve with this?” said David Einan, a manager with EPA Region 10 said. “I am not opposed to adding seats if that is the right solution.”
Steve Wiegman, who was recently elected as the new chairman of the advisory board, said while he is not necessarily opposed to expansion, “as an engineer I like to have a limited number of uncertainties.”
There are already plenty of uncertainties right now at Hanford, Wiegman said. He pointed to the incoming Joe Biden administration, the planned changeover of three major contractors at the site in the first half of 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We oppose the Decide/Announce/Defend strategy that DOE so often uses, as it did here, especially when there is no discussion with Board members about the need for new members, what communities to reach out to if so, and impact on the Board,” said Hanford Challenge Executive Director Tom Carpenter in an email. “It raises questions about what DOE is really up to here.”
“The HAB was formed nearly three decades ago, at the beginning of the Hanford cleanup mission,” a DOE spokesperson at Hanford said in a Friday email. “Since that time, the demographics of the surrounding and affected communities have evolved. … Rather than eliminate any existing seats, the Department prefers to add new seats to the board to provide opportunities to ensure a seat at the table for broad and diverse perspectives and views, to further enrich the discussion.”
