A project to advance testing on whether some radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site could be grouted rather than converted to glass would proceed under direction from legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee advanced its marked -up fiscal 2019 energy appropriations bill for a vote by the full chamber.
The proposed spending plan for cleanup at Hanford would provide more money than the Department of Energy requested but would not match current spending levels, according to information from the staff of Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash).
The budget proposal would increase funding for the Hanford Office of River Protection by $41.5 million. That would raise the total to $1.48 billion, which is short of the current spending of $1.56 billion. The office is responsible for management and treatment of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste, left by decades of plutonium production for the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
The Richland Operations Office, responsible for all other environmental remediation operations and operating the Hanford Site, would receive $205 million more under the House spending proposal than requested by the administration. The $863 million total would match current spending if security and safeguards are excluded. House security and safeguard totals were not available for Hanford this week.
The House as of Friday had not scheduled a floor vote on the bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee next week is set to take up its version of the legislation, which has not yet been made public. The Senate Appropriations subcommittee for energy and water is expected to take up the bill Tuesday followed by a full committee markup on Thursday.
The legislative report for the House spending bill says $15 million is included for the next phases of the Hanford Test Bed Initiative. The pilot program so far has grouted 3 gallons of low-activity radioactive tank waste at Perma-Fix Environmental Solutions in Richland, Wash. The grouted waste was shipped to the Waste Control Specialists disposal site in Texas. The next phase of the program would grout 2,000 gallons of waste and the remaining phase would grout at least 100,000 gallons.
Bechtel National is building the Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford to process up to 56 million gallons of low-activity and high-level waste produced by decades of plutonium production. The plant’s price tag has risen to nearly $17 billion, and it is expected to begin treatment around 2022.
The House bill report would require DOE to submit a report to the Senate and House Appropriations Committees by the end of fiscal 2019 detailing the lessons learned from the demonstration and the estimated potential tank waste life-cycle cost and schedule savings of grouting. The report should also cover recommendations, including alternatives for off-site commercial waste treatment and disposal from an initial set of three Hanford storage tanks, according to the bill report.
An Energy Communities Alliance report issued last September said continued progress on the Test Bed Initiative is important to lay the foundation for future DOE decisions regarding the potential for treating, stabilizing, and disposing of Hanford low-activity waste in a form other than glass. “If the test proves successful the concept could allow tank closures at Hanford to be dramatically accelerated, reducing cleanup costs by billions of dollars and resulting in decades of schedule improvement,” said the report, “Waste Disposition: A New Approach to DOE’s Waste Management Must Be Pursued.”
If the next phase of testing proceeds, changes likely will be required for the Perma-Fix Richland plant’s state permit, according to the Washington state Department of Ecology. The state agency, a Hanford regulator, has called for all tank waste to be vitrified as supplemental waste treatment options are considered.
The Hanford Waste Treatment Plant was not planned to be large enough to treat all of the low-activity tank waste at Hanford in a reasonable time, with the remainder of the material to be addressed in a supplemental treatment plan. About 90 percent of the waste, when separated, is expected to be low activity. A decision will not need to be made for 15 years on how the additional waste will be treated and DOE should focus now on starting treatment of low-activity waste at the vitrification plant by 2023 or sooner, according to the Department of Ecology.
The House bill report also addressed vitrification plant issues. It directed DOE to resume full engineering design to resolve safety-related design issues for the High-Level Waste and Pretreatment Facilities in the wake of technical issues related to the high-level waste they will handle.
The Energy Department has focused on starting low-activity waste treatment, which is required by 2023 under a federal court order. The plant is not required to be fully operating, including high-level waste treatment, until 2036. Before DOE moves forward with any plans to place the High-Level Waste and Pretreatment Facilities into preservation mode for an extended period of time, the department must report to both Appropriations Committees, the bill report said.
It also would require DOE to contract with an outside, independent agent with expertise in quality assurance programs to review current quality assurance procedures and to determine the full extent of problems in all Waste Treatment Plant structures. The Government Accountability Office released a report in April that cast doubt on DOE’s ability to oversee Bechtel National’s work on the plant. The independent review would ensure that oversight has been effectively conducted and that quality assurance issues have been appropriately identified before facilities start up, the bill report said.
