The Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state has named Ben Harp as deputy manager, after he served in the position on an acting basis for several weeks.
He also will serve as chief operating officer for the DOE office charged with management and disposal of 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste at Hanford. He replaces J.D. Dowell, who now is working for Fluor.
Harp came to the Department of Energy from the Puget Sound Naval Base in 1991. He most recently was the assistant manager for the site’s tank farm project and has also served as acting assistant manager for engineering and nuclear safety and deputy assistant manager for tank farms. He has been part of the senior executive service at ORP since 2010.
New Trial Date Set for Hanford Worker Protection Lawsuit
A new trial date has been set in a federal lawsuit over worker protection from chemical vapors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
After the plaintiffs requested a five-month delay, plaintiffs and defendants agreed to postpone the trial by about six weeks, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. Judge Thomas Rice accepted the proposal and has reset the bench trial from Sept. 18, 2017, to Oct. 30, 2017.
The case pits Washington state, community organization Hanford Challenge, and Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598 against the Department of Energy and its Hanford waste tank farm contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions. The plaintiffs are demanding that the defendants institute increased measures to safeguard workers against vapors from tanks that hold 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste.
Other deadlines in the case, including for submission of witness lists, also have been extended by about six weeks, court documents state. Extending most of the case’s deadlines gives the plaintiffs some additional time for steps such as preparing expert reports without unduly delaying proceedings, said the joint motion from plaintiffs and defendants. The plaintiffs had asked for more time due to the large volume of documents, which they were receiving as late as November, and to consider Rice’s denial of a preliminary injunction that would have mandated enhanced worker protections while the case was being resolved.
Last Vertical Pipe Units Coming Out ‘Round Christmas
An Energy Department contractor was expected to begin a review Thursday that would pave the way for removing the last 14 vertical pipe units from the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., an agency official said Wednesday.
Most of the 90 pipes, which were filled with radioactive wastes in the 1950s and 60s, have been yanked out already and disposed of at the site’s Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility landfill. But around the Christmas holiday, contractor CH2M Plateau Remediation Co. could start excavating the remaining 14, Doug Shoop, manager of the DOE Richland Operations Office, told a citizens group Wednesday.
“It will not be long before we have all those vertical pipe units done,” Shoop said during a webcast presentation to the Hanford Advisory Board.
Pipe excavation began in 2015 under the previous central-plateau cleanup contractor, Washington Closure Hanford: a partnership that included AECOM, Bechtel National, and CH2M.
DOE Richland Office Gets Reprieve on Some Solid Waste Cleanup Deadlines
The Washington state Department of Ecology on Dec. 1 extended the deadline for closing three solid waste management areas at the Hanford Site to Dec. 31, 2017, the state regulator stated in a letter to the Department of Energy.
The extension applies to three areas classified as dangerous waste management units: the 2706-T Yard, the 221-T Railroad Tunnel, and the CWC-WRAP Shipping and Receiving Area.
The Department of Energy says none of these facilities have received or processed any waste in at least a year, Ron Skinnarland, manager of the Waste Management section of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste program, wrote to Doug Shoop, manager of DOE’s Richland Operations Office.
DOE also requested an extension for closing the the Trench 34 Waste Storage and Treatment Pad at the Low Level Radioactive Waste Burial Ground, which Skinnarland did not grant “because it is not an authorized [dangerous waste management unit],” according to the Dec. 1 letter.
Among the four waste management facilities, DOE processes or stores low-level waste, mixed low-level waste, and some transuranic waste. Some Hanford low-level radioactive waste burial grounds store components from nuclear naval reactors.
