Kennewick — The Department of Energy and the state of Washington have reached a conceptual agreement on revising plans for cleanup of Hanford’s radioactive waste in underground tanks after nearly three years of negotiations.
However, both agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency, which also was a party to the talks, say they cannot discuss the details of the agreement.
DOE and its regulators — the Washington state Department of Ecology and U.S. EPA — say they are restricted in what they can say by the mediation agreement between the agencies and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
The agencies have met in more than 60 mediated sessions to reach a conceptual pact.
Now their attorneys must draft potential amendments to two documents, the federal court consent decree requirements for Hanford nuclear reservation site tank waste and the legally binding Tri-Party Agreement, to reflect the conceptual agreement, the agencies said in a joint announcement Tuesday.
Once the proposed modifications to the consent decree and Tri-Party Agreement are drafted and approved by state and federal officials, a public notice with detailed information will be released, said the state and federal agencies.
The public will be allowed to comment on draft changes to both the consent decree and also the Tri-Party Agreement before the Tri-Party Agreement is changed and the consent decree changes are approved by a federal judge.
The Hanford site adjoining Richland in Eastern Washington produced almost two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.
The effort left the 580-square-mile site with 56 million gallons of radioactive and other hazardous waste in underground tanks awaiting treatment for disposal, plus contaminated soil, groundwater, buildings and waste sites.
Tank waste is a concern because aging storage tanks, some built during World War II, put the groundwater beneath them at risk of contamination with highly toxic waste. The groundwater is moving toward the Columbia River about five miles away.
Holistic negotiations on tank waste began after the Washington Department of Ecology sent a letter to DOE in spring 2019 saying the state wanted to open a “frank discussion” about challenges DOE was having in meeting legal deadlines related to tank waste.
Ecology then proposed negotiations that lasted no more than six to nine months to “put us on a holistic path forward that addresses all of Hanford’s tank waste through to completion of treatment.”
Hints of waste treatment change
Although the state and federal agencies were limited on what they could discuss Tuesday, they did say that the fiscal 2024 Hanford site budget proposed by the Biden administration aligns with the conceptual agreement for the nuclear reservation site’s tank waste, which gives some possible hints to the agreement’s contents.
“This agreement is good news for Hanford workers, the Tri-Cities community, and all of Washington state,” said Sen. Patty Murray, chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is key to Hanford funding.
“I have long held that the federal government has a moral and legal obligation to support Hanford workers and clean up the Hanford site,” she said. “I’m glad there’s a conceptual agreement on tank waste between the state and the administration to make good on that commitment.”
She said she would continue fighting for the money needed for environmental cleanup at Hanford, not just for tank waste but also other cleanup needs.
The Biden administration has proposed the site’s largest ever annual budget for next fiscal year of about $3 billion.
The proposed fiscal 2024 budget includes money to continue work on the Hanford vitrification plant’s High Level Waste Plant, which is required to start operating by 2033, but not to resume construction on the vitrification plant’s huge Pretreatment Facility.
Work started on the Hanford Pretreatment Facility more than 20 years ago to allow it to prepare high level waste for glassification at the vit plant and then disposal.
Today the unfinished Pretreatment Facility stands 119 feet high. It’s wider than a football field and about 1.5 times longer.
But with advances in technology and more knowledge of the stew of waste from multiple chemical processes to extract plutonium from uranium fuel irradiated in Hanford reactors, there may be other ways to pretreat high level waste.
The state and federal negotiations over the past three years were informed by an analysis of alternatives on the path forward for treating high level radioactive waste, with a report on alternatives released early this year.
DOE ordered the analysis in 2019 when it became clear that with construction on the vitrification plant’s Pretreatment Facility halted since 2012, it would not be operating in time to prepare high level waste for vitrification by the 2033 deadline.
It looked at 11 alternatives for high level waste treatment, all of which would start glassifying high level waste at the Hanford vitrification plant, or Waste Treatment Plant, by the consent decree deadline of 2033.
Alternatives that would use other methods to pretreat high level waste, bypassing the unfinished Pretreatment Facility, scored higher in the report. The option with the highest score proposed pretreatment of waste in a new Feed Pretreatment Facility and also building a new Effluent Management Facility.
Washington’s early negotiation goals
DOE now is preparing to start treating some of the least radioactive waste in the tanks next year.
It had been required by the consent decree to start treating low activity waste by the end of this year, but was given more time due to delays caused by the COVID pandemic.
Ecology said when it proposed holistic negotiations on tank waste in 2019 that it did not expect to budget on key terms of tank treatment.
That meant meeting the court-enforced consent decree deadline to start treating low activity radioactive tank waste by the end of 2023, high level tank waste treatment by 2033 and steady progress on emptying single shell waste storage tanks, it said then.
Hanford has 149 single shell tanks that are prone to leaks. The waste they hold is being emptied into 27 newer double shell tanks to await treatment at the vitrification plant or other means, such as a proposed pilot project.
The pilot project, called the Test Bed Initiative, will test turning the waste into a concrete-like grout for disposal out of state.
The Tri-City Development Council is looking forward to providing the Tri-City community’s input on proposed changes to the tank waste program once they become available for public review, pointing out that Hanford has one of the most complex and technically challenging cleanup efforts in the world.
“In order to ensure long-term success, it is critical that we find opportunities to safely expedite cleanup, reduce costs, and achieve alignment between DOE, its regulators, regional tribes and impacted communities,” said David Reeploeg, vice president for TRIDEC federal programs. “This conceptual agreement appears to be a significant step forward in achieving that alignment.”
