Richland, WIPP Focus of Concern
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
2/27/2015
House lawmakers pressed Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz about proposed budget cuts for cleanup work at Hanford and the Waste Isolation Pilot in a set of hearings this week. Among the areas of concerns is DOE’s proposed cut for funding to the Richland Operations Office at Hanford. The Department’s FY 2016 requests proposes a $93 million cut, a level lawmakers said could lead to missed milestones. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes Hanford, questioned Moniz about the proposed cut at a House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing. “I am concerned … about the potential impacts of the Administration’s proposed hundred-million dollar cut to the Richland Operations Office, particularly on cleanup work along the river corridor. Delays to this work, and I’ve seen this firsthand, would result in higher project costs, missed milestones, and loss of cleanup momentum,” Newhouse said.
As DOE’s budget cites technical reasons for delays in the River Corridor projects, Newhouse asked for an explanation of those technical issues and whether the Department is committed to meeting “existing legal milestones along the River Corridor.” Moniz replied that under Richland’s FY’16 budget, “we’ll certainly be continuing aggressively with things like the groundwater pumping, you know, chromium treatment, etc. We also are making tremendous progress, for example, it wasn’t long ago that the highest risk facility was viewed as the Plutonium Finishing Plant, and we are getting that down to grade.”
Moniz also said that the overall proposed budget for Hanford next year is up $100 million, given that the Office of River Protection saw a $202 million increase over enacted levels, largely to support Waste Treatment Plant work. “Within a pretty constrained budget the overall site budget will be going up a hundred million dollars in our proposal as we advance with the WTP project where our aim is to be able to start vitrifying at least the low activity waste very, very early in the next decade, like 2021, 2022,” Moniz said. He added: “So I think overall the site will have an increased budget, and I think we’ll make very very credible progress in both parts of the program.”
‘The Community and The Law Don’t Consider That a Plus Up’
However, that characterization of the Hanford budget irked Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who questioned Moniz at a hearing the following day in the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. “You were explaining that there’s a $100 million increase in the Hanford budget. I see that differently. There are two separate sites collectively known as Hanford, the Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection,” she said. “Richland is down $100 million and Office of River Protection is up. But it’s imperative that they are viewed as two separate sites. That’s how they are under the law. The community and the law don’t consider that a plus up in the budget, and neither do I.”
Moniz replied that he agreed with the budget numbers cited, and Herrera Beutler pressed him on whether cuts to the Richland budget would keep DOE from meeting cleanup commitments. Moniz replied: “Look, I’ll be honest. The Environmental Management budget, we got plenty of other needs we would be happy to meet but the budget constraints, they are what they are. Obviously, Hanford, Idaho, Savannah River, other areas in Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, we still have a lot of big problems to address and we are trying to do the best optimization we can within a rational budget envelope.”
Rep. Simpson Questions WIPP Cuts
With WIPP in the midst of recovery efforts, Subcommittee Chair Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) questioned Moniz about DOE’s proposed cut of approximately $76 million for the site. “The request also proposes a cut of $33 million in base operation costs and only provides $30 million to pay for what could be more than $300 million in needed infrastructure upgrades before WIPP could be fully operational. Nevertheless you’ve set ambitious targets for resuming interim waste operations by March 2016 and full operations by 2018,” Simpson said. “Do you believe you’ll meet those target dates that you’ve set for reopening WIPP and do you believe that this budget request will fully support those targets and why doesn’t this budget request include fully sufficient funds for the infrastructure upgrades and what will be the impact of the proposed cut to base operations for WIPP?”
Moniz said that the 2016 date for interim operations is likely, but the date for full operations still is not firm. “The issue is that this year we are still going to be in the design phase of the major ventilation upgrade which is the long pole in the tent for the full restart, 2018 we hope we’ll be there. But to be honest we still don’t know what the capital costs will be for the ventilation upgrade and schedule,” Moniz said. “So 2016 we are saying we will meet that, 2018 we think is reasonable but contingent on the results of our design. Part of our project management change is I don’t want to keep throwing out numbers until I know what the damn project is.”
