The Department of Energy and its regulators for the Hanford Site in Washington state have scheduled what amounts to the first in-person State of the Site meeting since 2014 after being prodded by a local advisory group.
The meeting, called the Hanford Regional Dialogue, is scheduled for 6 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Best Western Plus Hood River Inn in Hood River, Ore. That is about a three-hour drive from Hanford.
Last November, the Hanford Advisory Board recommended that DOE and its regulators — the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington state Department of Ecology — schedule a series of regional, in-person State of the Site meetings for spring 2018. The three agencies responded in April that while multiple meetings would be desirable, they planned to start with a single session at a location outside the Tri-Cities.
The Energy Department said this week it will assess the upcoming meeting before deciding whether to schedule additional events. The Hood River meeting, like previous meetings dubbed State of the Site, will include updates from officials on Hanford cleanup and a chance for the public to talk with decision makers on the topics they choose. Also planned are breakout group discussions on topics such as cleanup priorities and tank waste treatment.
Most Hanford meetings are limited to a specific topic, such as gatherings earlier this year to discuss stabilizing the PUREX Plant waste storage tunnels. But the previous State of the Site meetings have given the public, workers, and workers’ families the chance to ask questions directly of top local Hanford and regulator leadership on a broader range of topics, such as future land use, worker health, and rumors of layoffs.
Last year, a virtual State of the Site meeting was conducted online, but the Hanford Advisory Board said in-person meetings were better suited for the wide-ranging discussions. The last in-person iteration of these meetings near Hanford in Richland, Wash., in 2014 drew about 250 people. Meetings near Hanford typically have been the best attended State of the Site events.
When DOE, which organizes the annual State of the Site meetings, failed to plan any in 2015, the nongovernmental groups Columbia Riverkeeper, Hanford Challenge, Heart of America Northwest, and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility stepped in to organize their own versions of State of the Site meetings around the Pacific Northwest. The EPA and the Department of Ecology participated in the citizen-organized meetings but DOE did not.
