Long-anticipated talks between the Energy Department and Washington state on remediation milestones at the Hanford Site could go forward remotely.
“We are moving forward on holistic negotiations, but when they might start depends on the availability of the [federal] mediator, and how successful we are at kicking off the negotiations through remote communications,” Randy Bradbury, a spokesman for the Washington state Department of Ecology, said via email this week.
The parties previously expressed hope talks might begin by early 2020.
The Energy Department, through a spokesman, this week merely reiterated its prior statements that it appreciates the chance to make progress in “our shared objective of advancing this difficult cleanup in a manner that provides long-term benefits for local communities, the region, the state, and the nation.”
The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest obstacle to the much-discussed discussions between DOE, Washington state, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the three signatories to the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement that set cleanup milestones at the former plutonium production complex.
The state is unhappy with DOE’s adherence to legal mandates at the Hanford Site, including schedules under their agreement. It has suggested without negotiations it could take the federal government to court for failing to comply with court-approved milestones.
In written exchanges with Ecology, Hanford Manager Brian Vance said retrieval of waste from single-shell tanks has been bedeviled by many factors. These include harsh weather, problems with the retrieval equipment, and mandatory employee use of supplied air respirators as a precaution against chemical vapors from the tanks.
Last May, then-Ecology Director Maia Bellon, since retired, called for frank discussions about the schedule for vitrification of 56 million gallons of low-activity and high-level radioactive waste at the Waste Treatment Plant being built by Bechtel. A federal court order requires DOE and Bechtel to demonstrate it can convert low-activity tank waste into glass by the end of 2023, and effectively do the same thing for high-level waste by the end of 2033.
By early September, Vance agreed to joint talks. But there have been delays connected with agreeing on an agenda, leadership turnover at Ecology, a state effort to penalize DOE $1 million for failure to turn over certain data on Hanford safety information, and now the international health emergency.
