The Department of Energy was criticized Wednesday for failing to provide important information for discussion at a meeting on the fiscal 2021 budget for environmental remediation at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
Participants at the meeting in the nearby city of Richland said they did not receive specific information on work that will be needed for DOE and its contractors to meet legal cleanup milestones or financial information on projects planned for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, 2020. Attendees repeatedly asked how they could submit meaningful comments on budget priorities as DOE officials prepare to send the Hanford 2021 budget request to department headquarters.
“We can’t comment on 2021 intelligently as the public if we don’t have even a presentation of what the TPA (Tri-Party Agreement) compliant budget request would be for 2021,” said state Rep. Gerald Pollet (D), executive director of Hanford watchdog Heart of America Northwest.
The Energy Department also has stopped providing its customary integrated priority list at its public budget meetings in recent years, Pollet said. The list ranks priorities for the budget that is submitted to DOE headquarters and shows what work could and could not be done with a proposed funding amount.
“There is no here, here,” said Paige Knight, who represents Oregon-based Hanford Watch on the Hanford Advisory Board. “How can we comment on this?”
Hanford is the most expensive and most complex of the Energy Department’s nuclear remediation jobs, including management of 56 million gallons of tank-held radioactive waste left by decades of plutonium production.
The Energy Department said in its presentation at the meeting that its priorities for fiscal 2021, in no particular order and with no set funding amounts, include advancing capabilities for low-activity waste treatment at the Waste Treatment Plant, dry storage of cesium and strontium capsules, tank closure, and tank waste retrieval at the AX Tank Farm. Other priorities including ongoing work such as groundwater treatment, addressing infrastructure needs, and tank maintenance.
The meeting in Richland marked the start of the fiscal 2021 budget priorities comment period. Comments may be submitted until June 15 to [email protected]. Federal agencies generally issue their budget plans for the next fiscal budget year in February or March.
The Department of Energy presentation at the budget meeting mostly focused on what could be accomplished before fiscal 2021 based on the Trump administration’s latest budget request, minus any plus-up from Congress.
The White House requested $718 million for the Richland Operations Office for fiscal 2021, down from $954 million in this fiscal year, and nearly $1.4 billion for the Office of River Protection, down from nearly $1.6 billion in current spending.
The House Appropriations Committee this week rolled out a funding bill that would increase overall funding for DOE’s nuclear cleanup office to $7.2 billion from the requested $6.5 billion. Details on how the additional money could be divided between Hanford and 15 other DOE properties should be released Monday.
The Office of River Protection could in 2020 finish installing its Tank-Side Cesium Removal System, a system to separate a low-activity radioactive waste stream from Hanford tank waste for treatment at the Waste Treatment Plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility. Startup testing of process and building systems for the facility could be completed and engineering continued on the design for the High-Level Waste Facility.
The Energy Department could also award a contract for the procurement and assembly of replacement Low-Activity Waste Facility melters. Based on their design life, the plant’s initial melters will need to be replaced after five to seven years. The Low-Activity Waste Facility has two melters to heat glass-forming material and waste to produce a glass form safe for disposal.
At the Richland Operations Office, demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant to slab on grade is due to be completed in fiscal 2020.
Shipping of sludge from the K West Reactor Basin to dry storage in central Hanford is expected to be completed that year as well. Contracts should be awarded for construction modifications at the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility to support transfer of cesium and strontium capsules to dry storage and construction started on the modifications. Excavation is expected on the highly radioactive spill beneath the 324 Building.
