A federal judge has approved a request to push back the deadlines for extraction of radioactive tank waste set in the court-enforced consent decree governing cleanup of the Hanford Site.
Extending the two milestones was a condition of a settlement agreement reached in September in a separate lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington state. That case focused on better protection for Hanford workers from chemical vapors associated with tank waste.
On Oct. 12, District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson reset tank waste retrieval milestones to those proposed in a joint motion by plaintiff and defendant in the consent decree case — respectively, Washington state and the Department of Energy. The federal agency will have an additional two-and-a-half years to retrieve waste from the next nine single-shell tanks at Hanford and transfer it to newer double-shell tanks. The milestone to retrieve waste from the vessels — five A Farm Tanks and four AX Farm tanks — is extended from March 31, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2026.
In addition, a pacing milestone to keep retrieval from the nine tanks on track has been extended by six months, from the end of 2020 to June 30, 2021. The milestone requires that the last three of the C Farm tanks be emptied to regulatory standards, which has been completed, and that waste be retrieved from the first two of the next nine tanks.
Fifty-six million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste is stored in underground tanks at Hanford, a byproduct of decades of plutonium production for the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Waste is being transferred from 149 single-shell tanks to 27 newer double-shell tanks for storage until it can be treated for disposal.
Malouf Peterson set the previous waste-transfer milestones in March 2016 in a revision to the 2010 consent decree. The state of Washington had sued in 2008 after it became clear the Energy Department could not meet milestones in the Tri-Party Agreement on Hanford cleanup, including for tank waste retrieval and processing the waste at the Waste Treatment Plant that remains under construction at Hanford.
The Energy Department notified the court in December 2016 that it was at serious risk of missing the two milestones that Malouf Peterson has now reset.
In July 2016, the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council, an umbrella group for 15 unions, issued a stop work order unless supplied air respirators were used for all work inside the fence lines at the site’s tanks farms. It has since agreed to some limited use of air-purifying respirators, but most work continues to be done by workers wearing supplied air respirators and carrying air tanks and other equipment that can weigh up to 40 pounds. Workers must leave the tank farms to change out the air tanks when they run low.
The supplied air respirators increase the time required to perform tasks in the tank farm by about 50 percent, the Energy Department has said. “Use of supplied air for most work throughout the tank farms has reduced efficiencies and delayed tank retrieval operations, and will continue to have such effects,” Malouf Peterson wrote in her order amending the consent decree. The Energy Department also is concerned about the condition of two of the tanks. Although it did not elaborate on its concerns in court documents, two of the nine tanks have leaked waste in the past.
On Tuesday, parties in the separate Hanford chemical vapors lawsuit filed a motion for an administrative stay, as proposed in the settlement agreement. The parties notified U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice on Sept. 19 that they had reached a settlement agreement, contingent on the change to tank waste retrieval milestones in the consent decree.
The state of Washington, watchdog group Hanford Challenge, and Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598 sued the Department of Energy and tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions in 2015. The settlement agreement would put the case on hold as DOE and its contractor take actions it outlines. They include continued work on a system that would destroy vapors and a system to disperse chemicals high above workers’ breathing zone. Monitoring also would continue. The Energy Department would be required to pay the state and Hanford Challenge $925,000 for their costs in bringing the lawsuit.
The motion for an administrative stay proposes that the parties submit a status report on Feb. 1, 2022, unless the case becomes active before then.
