The Department of Energy is bidding adieu to its Office of River Protection and Richland Operations Office in Washington state effective Oct. 1, DOE’s manager for the Hanford Site said Tuesday.
“We are going to be the Hanford Field Office, it’s going to be a new name,” Vance told the Hanford Advisory Board Tuesday evening.
Not everyone on the site’s local advisory board thinks this is a good idea.
Longtime Hanford Advisory Board member Pam Larsen said Wednesday, during the second day of the board’s meeting, she has reservations.
While it makes sense to flatten bureaucracy, Larsen said, at the same time, having the two separate field offices have probably helped fatten the DOE budget to the current $3 billion level.
“I understand the concept of one Hanford sounds good, but having the two sites helped us get the funding to sustain the cleanup,” Larsen said. “I hope it’s not naïve that we are moving in this direction … We had two sites for a reason. So that worries me.”
In March, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told the House Appropriations Committee that merging the two offices won’t lessen the importance of solidifying Hanford’s 56 million gallons of liquid waste. Congress set up the separate Office of River Protection in 1998 to quarterback the liquid waste issue at Hanford.
Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes Hanford, inserted language into a 2018 defense policy bill preserving two separate field offices until fiscal 2025, which starts Oct. 1.