Staff Reports
WC Monitor
3/21/2014
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz failed to bring a detailed plan for meeting obligations to clean up tank waste at Hanford to a visit with the Washington state governor this week, according to the state. A draft cleanup plan shared by Moniz lacked the comprehensiveness and level of detail the state has requested for months, said Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee (D). “While there are aspects of the plan that have merit, we need to have assurance that the U.S. Department of Energy’s proposal will lead to a plan that will be acceptable to the state,” the governor said after the meeting. His next step will be to consult with state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and the state Department of Ecology, he said.
Last month Inslee and Ferguson sent a letter to Moniz and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder saying they were being kept in the dark about plans for Hanford. They requested a plan that would “contain the specificity, detail and comprehensiveness which has thus far not been provided” on how DOE proposes to amend a 2010 court-enforced consent decree. DOE has told the state it is at risk of not meeting the remaining consent-decree milestones for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant and also may not get two of the C Farm tanks that still hold waste emptied on schedule. Moniz offered to come to Olympia for a face-to-face discussion of a proposal to amend the consent decree before formally delivering the proposal to the state. “We made it clear last month we were expecting a comprehensive plan for a path forward, and I was disappointed with the scope of the federal government’s approach,” Ferguson said this week. He described the conversation with Moniz’s team as a candid discussion of the state’s expectations. Ferguson is continuing to provide information to Inslee on options to enforce the consent decree and the Tri-Party Agreement, he said.
Could Legal Action be In the Future?
The consent decree was the result of a lawsuit filed by Washington state. If the state decides to pursue legal action on its milestones, the state and federal government would first go to dispute resolution as required by the consent decree and then the state could ask the court for relief. DOE released a statement after the meeting between Moniz and Inslee saying that the energy secretary “shared his vision for a path forward that moves to vitrification expeditiously while recognizing the need to solve remaining technical challenges prior to building certain parts of the project. Given the change in approach required by the technical issues, the department has provided its plans as currently available, sought the state’s feedback and looks forward to taking that into account and providing additional information in the near-term.” Both Inslee and Ferguson said they appreciated Moniz visiting Olympia to discuss DOE’s draft cleanup plan, even though it did not meet expectations.
DOE Proposing Three-Phase Approach
In September, DOE released the Hanford Tank Waste Retrieval, Treatment, and Disposition Framework for discussion, but it contained few technical details and did not cover cost and schedule information. It outlined a possible proposal to send some tank waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant without sending it to the vitrification plant for treatment. It also proposed sending some liquid waste directly to the vit plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility and sending some additional waste directly to the plant’s High Level Waste Facility. The waste would bypass the plant’s Pretreatment Facility, where construction has stopped until technical issues that could affect its safe and efficient operation are resolved. Sending the waste directly to those treatment facilities would require some pretreatment to be done before it reaches the vit plant, causing two new facilities to be built outside the plant. Adding new urgency to the issue are discoveries that at least one single-shell tank is leaking waste into the ground and one double-shell tank has a leak between its shells.
