December 16, 2007

Riverkeeper blasts Hanford cleanup work
Work expected by 2028 has been pushed back to 2052

By RAELYNN RICARTE
Hood River News

Columbia Riverkeeper believes that 90 percent of the remaining cleanup work at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation could be completed within 10 years under a new management plan.

Greg DeBruler, technical expert for the water quality watchdog group, said it is time for citizens to demand a change in leadership. He said a U.S. Department of Energy proposal to set back cleanup benchmarks by decades is “completely unacceptable.”

“Enough is enough. Now’s the time to fire DOE and take a step in a new direction to get this job done,” said DeBruler.

He fielded the idea of forming an independent work group at the “State of the Site” meeting on Wednesday. The report on the progress of cleanup efforts at Hanford, located near Richland, Wash., was delivered at the Best Western Hood River Inn by officials from DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,

Oregon Department of Energy and Washington State Department of Ecology.

Since 1989, DeBruler said, DOE has spent $25 billion on the Hanford cleanup. He said the work was expected to be done in 2028 but has now been extended to 2052 and federal officials are hedging about how clean the site should be left.

Hanford was built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. The site produced 74 tons of plutonium — 10 pounds required for a bomb — for nuclear weapons through the 1980s.

Almost 20 years ago, Northwest activist groups convinced Congress to start cleaning up heavily contaminated sectors of the 586-square-mile property.

DeBruler urged the audience of about 70 citizens at the Dec. 12 meeting to support a publicly funded Hanford Clean-up Commission. He said the decision-making body would include officials from EPA, both states, the four tribes along the Columbia River, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Geologic Survey and National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration. Public input would be given to the commission through the existing Hanford Advisory Board.

DeBruler envisions that 10 private-industry managers could be hired to oversee contractors performing the work. He said DOE’s role would be reduced to one of fiscal oversight since the clean-up costs would still come from its budget.

He believes the time is right to take responsibility for the cleanup away from DOE, which has “proven that it can’t be trusted.” He bases that assessment on a federal proposal to delay, for the second time, the completion of a plant that will turn liquid waste into glass “logs” for safer storage.

DeBruler said the vitrification plant was originally supposed to be operational by 2002. He said the completion date was then set back to 2007 but the facility is only 40 percent complete. He said the current proposal is to have the plant up and running by 2019. He said the cost estimates for the largest facility of its kind in the country - and possibly the world - have risen with each delay, from $8 billion in 2002 to $12 billion in 2007. He anticipates the figure will reach $16-$18 billion within the next 12 years.

In addition to that added expense, DeBruler expects cleanup costs to mount as corroded tanks continue leaking toxins. He said, without a working plant, the treatment of 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste in 149 single-shell and 18 double-shell tanks is put off by 19 years, from 2028 until 2047. He said these tanks were built from 1943-54 so they will be 100 years old before toxic liquid is removed.

DeBruler said the proposed delays might have met with less resistance from citizens if an alternative solution was proposed. For example, he said the government could have suggested the construction of a 1 million gallon storage tank so that wastes could be transferred and stored temporarily without further leakage.

“These delays will cost us the potential loss of groundwater and an ecosystem, as well as a huge increase in the amount of money that we spend on cleanup,” he said.

DeBruler said DOE’s priority focus on cleaning up surface water along the river also doesn’t make sense. He said it is impossible to stop pollution of the waterway if plumes of chemicals continue to snake their way into subterranean channels. He said 270 billion gallons of groundwater is contaminated over 80 square miles at Hanford.

“We need a commission in charge of this mess that will focus entirely on cleanup,” said DeBruler.

He said DOE “sidetracks” too much of its funding on research to determine if nuclear production should restart at Hanford to meet national energy needs, or if it should become a repository for waste from other plants in the United States.

“I don’t buy the argument that DOE just can’t get enough money from Congress to get the job done,” said DeBruler. “It’s just a matter of changing the focus and turning the management role over to someone who will be a better steward of taxpayer dollars.”

He asks citizens in support of forming the Hanford Clean-up Commission to urge Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire to take action. He said the governor could take DOE to court for not fulfilling its obligations and suggest the formation of the commission as a compromise.

More information on the issue is available at www.columbiariverkeeper.org.