Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) took to Twitter Tuesday to praise an increase in cleanup funding for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in the fiscal 2023 omnibus bill, and remind President Joe Biden’s White House more is expected in the future.
“The federal funding bill includes a $141 million funding INCREASE for the Hanford Site cleanup,” Inslee said. “It’s a big step toward getting the resources we need to finish the cleanup safely, effectively and efficiently. There’s more work ahead, but this is a huge win for Washington state.”
The Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection, would together receive about $2.74 billion under the omnibus, or $141 million more than last year’s combined $2.6 billion.
The Senate passed the budget package Thursday by a vote of 68 to 29, and it was sent onto the House of Representatives for consideration.
Congress is scrambling to pass the package before adjourning Friday in order to avoid a Christmas holiday government shutdown. The most recent continuing resolution was scheduled to lapse Friday, Dec. 23, when the one-week extension ends.
Meanwhile, in a separate tweet Thursday, Inslee said Washington state, Oregon, Tribal governments and labor, conservation, and community groups “are united in this message: the time is now to put the Hanford cleanup on track to completion.”
Final cleanup of the plutonium production complex is not currently expected until 2078 or perhaps 2091, DOE said in its 2023 budget justification.
“Although this funding increase is a move in the right direction, it is only a drop in the bucket of what is required to make substantial cleanup progress at Hanford,” Hanford Challenge director Nikolas Peterson said via email Thursday. Annual funding between $5.36 billion and $11.44 billion could be necessary to fully remediate Hanford by 2078, based on DOE lifecycle projections, the citizen group official said.
David Reeploeg, executive director of Hanford Communities, agreed more money is needed in 2024 and beyond, but is happy to see this year’s increase. ‘Overall we are pleased with the funding numbers for Hanford, and believe they will support continued progress on the highest priority cleanup work for the remainder of the fiscal year.”
In addition the explanatory statement for omnibus bill’s energy and water development package, “recognizes that significant progress has been made at the Hanford site, but greater funding will be necessary to meet compliance milestones.”
The statement said the omnibus funds “full engineering, procurement, and construction work on the High-Level Waste Treatment Facility” at $392 million, or $248 million more than the $144 million budgeted for it in fiscal 2022.
Funding of Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste Facility construction at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant is set at $412 million, down from $586 million in fiscal 2022. Construction on the low-activity waste portion of the plant is winding down.
The DOE hopes to start converting low-level radioactive tank waste into glass at Hanford by the end of 2023. However, the agency has a modified consent decree granting it until 2025, if necessary, due to time lost from the COVID-19 pandemic. An Office of Environmental Management budget official recently acknowledged the startup could slip into 2024.
