Staff Reports
WC Monitor
1/23/2015
The state of Washington is concerned that the Department of Energy may be planning to take longer to build the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant and scale back on retrieving waste from single-shell tanks at the site to lower annual spending, according to new documents filed in federal court. DOE said in earlier court documents that the state’s proposal to amend a court-enforced consent decree would require unrealistic funding levels. It put the cost at $18 billion above typical spending levels over the next 14 years. The state responded in a new document that if DOE removes the cost of building new waste storage tanks from the proposal, there should be no significant cost differences between the state’s and DOE’s competing proposals to amend the consent decree — unless DOE plans to substantially extend its work schedule to lower the per-year-cost. “The fact that Energy’s proposal ties future milestones to an ‘approved funding profile’ suggests that is exactly Energy’s plan,” the state told the federal court. DOE has put the cost of the state proposal to add new tanks to hold up to 12 million gallons of radioactive waste at more than $1 billion. While DOE has attacked the cost of the state’s plan, it has been silent on the cost of its own, the state said.
State Looking for More Deadlines Than DOE Wants
With DOE unlikely to meet most of the remaining deadlines in the 2010 consent decree — including having the vitrification plant fully operating in 2022 —DOE and the state have asked the Eastern Washington District U.S. Court to intervene and approve new deadlines. The state has proposed a highly structured consent decree with more than 100 new deadlines to keep DOE on track to treat waste and safely manage it until it is treated. DOE wants just five enforceable deadlines to be set in the amended consent decree, by the state’s count. DOE would commit to setting more deadlines as technical issues, such as corrosion of vit plant equipment and the potential buildup of flammable gas are resolved.
The state maintains that DOE knows enough about technical issues to commit to deadlines now and, in fact, expects its contractor Bechtel National to set a date for resolving technical issues. “Energy has not been forthcoming with the state and the court regarding the planning details it has already developed, because sharing that information would concede that devising an enforceable schedule is possible,” the state said. Construction has stopped on the vitrification plant’s Pretreatment Facility and part of the plant’s High Level Waste Facility to resolve technical issues. But the state has confirmed that DOE does have plans for resolving all of the major technical issues associated with both of those buildings with a forecasted schedule, the state said. Bechtel National provided plans to DOE in October and November to close out all the major remaining technical issues, it said.
DOE did not provide those plans to the state or the court, but the state has them and is reviewing them, it said. “There is nothing in these plans to conflict with the state’s two-year time frame for resolving High Level Waste issues, or three-year time frame for resolving Pretreatment Facility issues,” the state said. Even if DOE objects that Bechtel’s plans have not yet been approved or incorporated into contract amendments, the plans show that DOE has an available approach for resolving technical issues that fits within the state’s proposed schedule, making it far from the claims of “unachievable,” the state said.
State Says New Deadlines Needed to Reduce Risks
The state has argued that its proposed requirements and deadlines are needed to reduce the likelihood of future leaks from Hanford’s tanks and reduce risks. DOE has disagreed, saying its computer modeling shows that the long-term impacts of the unrealistic scenario of tanks leaking a large volume of waste would not significantly increase risk to groundwater or the Columbia River. An estimated 1 million gallons of tank waste has previously leaked or spilled in central Hanford, several miles from the Columbia River. Although at least one tank continues to leak waste into the ground, most pumpable liquids have been removed from Hanford’s single-shell tanks and groundwater is being cleaned up.
DOE’s argument is misleading, the state said. Its computer models do not address what would happen to groundwater if a significant portion of the drainable liquid waste that remains in the oldest tanks were to leak, the state said. The groundwater treatment systems now in place are not an adequate safety net against the affects of leaks, relying on barriers and treatment systems that DOE has not committed to or constructed, it said.
DOE stands by its assertion in its latest court filing that any risk posed by future tank leaks would be small. “Moreover, the state’s proposal would not reduce risk in any meaningful way compared to DOE’s proposal,” said the Department of Justice, which represents DOE.
DOE Says It’s Proposing Realistic Deadlines
DOE emphasized in its latest filing the evolving and sometimes novel technical challenges it faces. DOE said that its proposal provides for deadlines that would be realistic and feasible because they are based on mature project data and developed with recognition of the technical and budgetary realities DOE faces. “DOE must plan and manage this project consistent with federal fiscal constraints, informed by historical appropriations levels and cognizant of DOE’s other cleanup obligations at 16 nuclear sites in 11 states,” it said. Congressional appropriations have stayed relatively constant in recent years and are not likely to increase significantly now, the Department of Justice said.
The state has argued that DOE is at fault under the current consent decree for not foreseeing technical issues because of poor management practices. The federal government responded that the state has failed to acknowledge the magnitude and safety risks associated with technical issues that proved more difficult to resolve than DOE or the state anticipated when the consent decree was signed. The state should not push DOE now to cut short its resolution of technical issues in order to proceed with engineering and construction of the vitrification plant, the Department of Justice said. “This is the very sort of poor project management the state alleges to be at the root of the technical issues in the first place,” it said. The state’s approach would commit DOE, the state and likely the court to an endless cycle of modifications of the consent decree and open DOE to sanctions for missed deadlines that DOE advised the state it could not meet, the Department of Justice said.
