Oregon's Feeling about Hanford

It is quite sad, and telling, that the only active opposition to the US Department of Energy dumping more hazardous nuclear waste at Hanford seems to come from Oregon, those downstream from the project. Senator Wyden is up on the issue, and his statement, reprinted below, captures the feelings of those in Oregon who face disaster should Hanford's nonsense and foolishness get out of control.

Statement of Senator Ron Wyden
Opposing the Department of Energy’s Plans to Increase
Radioactive Waste Disposal at Hanford Nuclear Reservation
Troutdale, Oregon
August 27, 2007

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is already one of the most polluted places on the planet. It currently stores more high-level nuclear waste than any other site in the United States and it is not safely managing all the nuclear waste it already has on-site today. And now, the Department of Energy (DOE) proposes to use Hanford as a national nuclear waste dump. The bottom line is the Energy Department should not be adding more waste to Hanford when it isn’t safely handling the waste it already has on-site.

The Energy Department and its contractors have a long history of mismanagement and failures to protect public health and safety at Hanford over the past twenty years. A report by the contractor responsible for the Hanford tank farms, which store 53 million gallons of highly radioactive and toxic wastes, indicates that removal of all these wastes just from the aging and leaking single shell tanks would not be completed until the year 2032. And even that far off date was based on an invalid assumption that the treatment plant to vitrify these wastes would begin operating in 2014. With recent problems and delays, the waste treatment plant won’t start operating until 2019 at the earliest. Hanford is decades away from dealing with the waste it already has on-site. Sending more waste to Hanford will mean more delay of the cleanup and more danger to workers at the site and the one million people who live downstream.

Just last month, Hanford had a spill of high-level nuclear waste while retrieving it from the single shell tanks that endangered workers at the site. I have requested that the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent DOE safety oversight agency, investigate this spill as well as the entire single shell retrieval program.

Given the long history of mismanagement of waste cleanup at Hanford, the Energy Department’s proposal to bring more waste to Hanford is essentially a proposal to turn Hanford and the Northwest into a national sacrifice zone.

According to news reports, DOE is now planning to dispose of an additional amount radioactive waste at Hanford that is equal to the contamination estimated from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, or about three-quarters of the radiation contained in 177 leak-prone underground tanks already located at Hanford.

The waste under discussion at today’s hearing is the most radioactive in the low-level category. Federal officials concede that some of it is as radioactive as high-level waste, which includes spent nuclear fuel. The inventory is also likely to contain "transuranic waste," often contaminated with plutonium and likely to remain radioactive for thousands of years.

As many of you know, I have long been concerned about the DOE’s history of unkept promises to clean-up Hanford. I say, enough is enough. It’s time to address the current problems and not add additional risks and dangers by adding huge volumes of additional nuclear wastes to Hanford. Over some 45 years, Hanford produced some 74 tons of plutonium, first to make nuclear weapons and later as part of its continued operation of the N-Reactor despite the fact that it was no longer needed. The results are well known to all. Some 1,600 identified waste sites. Some 53 million gallons of high-level waste stored in 177 underground storage tanks. Sixty-seven of those 177 tanks are suspected to have leaked that waste into the soil. The list goes on.

What is amazing to me is that DOE has now been trying to clean up the nuclear waste and environmental contamination for half as long as the site was actually in operation – more than 20 years – with no end in sight. We are now coming up on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Tri-Party Agreement between DOE, the State of Washington, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that was supposed to set specific, enforceable milestones for the clean-up. Instead, we’re miles away from meeting those cleanup goals.

In March of this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a fine of more than $1 million for the failure of DOE’s contractor to properly manage the existing low-level nuclear waste disposal facility – the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. This fine shows that DOE is not properly managing the low-level nuclear waste it already has on site. How can the Department be seriously considering sending more of the same waste to Hanford?

The situation with Hanford’s high-level nuclear waste is even more troubling. The high-level waste vitrification plant was supposed to be completed and in operation by 2011 according to the Tri-Party Agreement. It is now being delayed another eight years and construction won’t be completed until 2019 at a cost that has more than doubled – from $5.8 billion estimated in 2003 to this year’s estimate of $12.3 billion. And the plan still leaves no solution for more than half of the so-called low-activity waste that is supposed to be removed from the tanks and which also has to be vitrified. There’s still no plan for dealing with the waste that has leaked out of the tanks. There’s still no plan for dealing with strontium and cesium capsules that have been retrieved from all over the country from another failed DOE program to spin gold out of nuclear waste.

In March 2006, I requested that the Inspector General conduct an investigation into the safety of the waste vitrification plant after a former employee of Bechtel National, Inc – the U.S. Department of Energy’s principle contractor for the Hanford Nuclear Waste Treatment Plant Project – raised concerns about his former employer’s use of unproven and flawed control systems.

Last May, in response to my request, the DOE Inspector General issued report which stated that the control system intended for use at Hanford, “does not meet the stringent procedures, plans specifications, or work practices associated with nuclear quality standards.” I subsequently wrote to Energy Secretary Bodman asking what the Energy Department planned to do to address the Inspector General’s findings. I have yet to receive a substantive response from Secretary Bodman. This hardly inspires confidence in DOE’s ability to safely process the high-level tank wastes any time soon.

My point here is a simple one. DOE has not fulfilled its obligation to clean up Hanford. It’s not clear when it will. But now, DOE is proposing to bring more waste to Hanford – this time in the form of waste from commercial nuclear power plants, medical wastes and other nuclear processing facilities.

Hanford should have less nuclear waste, not more. It should be cleaned up, not dumped upon. So, today, I am putting myself on the record as being fiercely opposed to DOE’s plans to dump more waste at Hanford and I will do everything in my power to fight to keep it from happening.

People Disagree on Clean-up Efforts to Date at Hanford

I know Hanford is a hot-button issue for a lot of people. But I thought others might be interested in the comments left on a listserv I belong to talking about the subject. Here is one person's opinion of how clean-up efforts are going at Hanford:

Sir, I would take exception to the statement, "The federal government has
made scant progress in cleaning up nuclear waste left-over from decades of
dumping at Hanford."

There has been major progress in the cleanup. We would not
be anywhere near where we are now had it not been for the efforts of hundreds
and thousands of individuals and several agencies. Major buildings have been
removed, hundreds of contaminated sites have been removed or cleaned and years
of planning, permit writing and budgeting have been accomplished.

The work ahead is huge, more than 60 more years. For anyone to think that it can be cleaned up in a couple years is terribly miss informed. We will go through more that ten Presidential administrations, twenty Governors and countless representatives in congress all during the period to clean this up. Cleanup should not be a political process, however getting money for the cleanup is.

The foundation for the cleanup was formed with the Tri Party Agreement more than 15 years ago. We have representatives from EPA, State of Washington, State of Oregon, Tribes, Department of Health, City Governments and citizens that will comment, scrutinize and offer advice on how to protect the people and environment.

Respectfully, Rob Davis

However, others are not convinced.

I would like to offer another perspective. 18 years of cleanup $ 25 billion spent and yes there is progress but hardly where would should be by now.

We have had virtually no cleanup of the groundwater, We are leaving large quantities of waste in the deepervadoze zone that will further contaminate the groundwater. We have no milestones for when the groundwaterwill be cleaned up. We have the Tri-Parties switching the intent and legal requirement for cleanup along the River Corridor from unrestricted to a surface cleanup that is only protective for surface use. We havethe most contaminated part of Hanford the 200 Area/Central Plateau now in its beginning of cleanup where444 billion gallons of
liquid waste was dumped and no hard plans to cleanup the soil and more than likely no plansto deal with the deep soil contamination. We have an admitted 1 million gallons of tank waste that has leaked, more thanlikely a lot more has leaked. The 177 high level waste tanks most all of them have exceeded their design life and now USDOE is delaying the start of the vit plant to deal with the 53 million gallons of high level waste until 2019. This is a blue print fordisaster. Pretty Scary!

Yes we can say we have made progress, a lot of muck and truck hauling and tearing down. K-Basins have been a great success with several delays. A lot of surface cleanup has taken place but now the hard part
begins 18 years later.We have an agency USDOE that has proven time and time again that it can not meet any hard milestones that delays after delays will happen. USDOE has constantly tried ways to do less cleanup, like trying to leave Pre-70 transuranic waste buried, like not dealingwith the deep soil contamination and the list goes on.The people of the NW and the laws demand a more protective cleanup. Surface use cleanup is not acceptable and is not legal.The aquifer needs to be cleaned up, the deep soil contamination needs to be stabilized, or removed, treated and disposed.The River Corridor needs to be cleaned up to an unrestricted use level in order to meet the Trust Responsibility to the Tribesand future generations.The vit plant needs to operate now and not later.The vadoze zone in the Central Plateau needs to be fully characterized to understand how deep the contamination is,what are the volumes and how fast is it moving.The waste under the tanks needs to be cleaned up.We need a credible comprehensive cumulative RIver Corridor Risk Assessment not this so called Baseline Risk Assessmentthat is a joke.

Remember the Baseline Risk Assessment was supposed to be done at the start of cleanup, 18 years ago and it is supposed to look at the current risk and estimate future risk.One thing we have learned in 18 years and 25 billion USDOE is an expert at delaying the real hard issues.It is time for all of to ask is it not perhaps time to rethink who is in charge of cleanup. USDOE has proven to all of us including Congress that it can spend $25 billion and you still not deal with the real issues that threaten
the Columbia River and the people of the NW.

And to top it off USDOE is now proposing to ship more waste and make Hanford the defacto Nations DUMP. I suggest that we who track Hanford have a responsibility to the taxpayers and future generations to change the cleanupparadigm, we have to much proof that USDOE does not intend to do what is legally and morally right. We need to create a NW Cleanup Commission for the cleanup of Hanford and not sacrifice the future using an agency like USDOE thatsimply is failing to do a comprehensive cleanup.If you want to disagree with this suggestion than I ask you to tell me why you trust that USDOE will start up the vit plantin 2019, what basis you have for this.

Please remember in your response that the original vit plant was supposed to startin 2007. Also remember that cleanup for the River Corridor was supposed to be 2018 and that was supposed to a level that allowed unrestricted use. Not just surface use.

Respectfully Greg deBruler

Hanford

In the summer of 2006, a little over a year ago, some of you know I visited Hanford, obtaining a "seat on the bus" of one of Department of Energy's bus tours.

It was eye-opening in many ways. I'd read a lot about the facility but hadn't appreciated how incredibly huge it was, in terms of acreage. It takes a couple of hours to drive from one end to the other. But the other thing that was apparent was the amount of money spent by the federal government to clean up that place, and not much has been done for those billions of dollars.

This year, Department of Energy has announced that Hanford is one of the sites where they're considering dumping new hazardous wastes from nuclear activities elsewhere.

Last Monday was a public meeting in Oregon about this proposed reclassification of Hanford's mission. As reported in a Tri-Counties newspaper, Oregon's public officials (and many citizens)are opposed to this. Citizens around Hanford, however, continue to be enamored with the amount of money they get from the federal government and seem not to be concerned about this. I attach a Tri-Counties news article about the Portland meeting. It was contentious.

Crowd says no to more waste at Hanford

Published Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

ANNETTE CARY HERALD STAFF WRITER TROUTDALE, Ore. -- A standing-room-only crowd near Portland had a clear message for the Department of Energy on Monday night: Send no more radioactive waste to the Hanford nuclear reservation. It's different than the usual "not in my backyard," said Ken Niles, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy. "We're saying no more in our backyard because it is so horribly contaminated already," he said.

DOE is looking at Hanford as one option for disposing of an estimated 7,280 cubic yards of radioactive waste generated through 2062.It's a relatively small volume of
waste compared with the vast amount of waste already planned to be disposed of
at Hanford. But the amount of radiation it contains is significant. It has an
estimated 130 million curies of radioactivity. That compares to the 190 million
curies of radioactivity in the millions of gallons of waste held in underground
tanks from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons
program, much of which DOE plans to dispose of off Hanford.

DOE officials faced a crowd of about 80 people Monday who ranged from skeptical to hostile. "I'm outraged. It's a lie. Isn't it?" demanded Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, when a DOE official identified a pictured waste
container that was apparently abandoned as one that was being used. Similar
waste vaults are being considered for disposal at Hanford, eight other sites or
undetermined commercial facilities.

"We're being massaged with a lot of statistics," said Ruth Currie of Portland, who also said she didn't think DOE knows what it is doing. Problems at Hanford and other DOE sites were a recurring theme, with public comment hitting on delays in construction at the Hanford vitrification plant, last month's spill of high level radioactive waste at the Hanford tank farms and doubts that DOE would ever open the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Given DOE's long history of waste and cleanup mismanagement, a proposal to bring more waste to Hanford is essentially a plan to turn Hanford into a permanent national sacrifice zone, according to comments by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, read into the meeting record by a congressional
staffer.

"Hanford should be cleaned up, not dumped on," according to Wyden. Some
of the waste proposed to be sent to Hanford is extremely long-lived and must be
isolated for eternity, said Bill Mead, director of the Public Safety Resources
Agency in Portland. The meeting was an early step in determining what to do with
radioactive waste that includes activated metals from decommissioning nuclear
power plants and high-activity radioactive materials used for medical diagnosis
and treatment.

More than half would be from DOE nondefense work, with much of
that coming from a West Valley, N.Y., project. DOE is considering sending the
waste to a geological repository deep underground, such as Yucca Mountain, or
burying it at a site such as Hanford in a deep bore hole or waste containers
closer to the surface of the ground. The international nuclear community has
settled on deep bore hole disposal as the preferred option for similar waste,
said Christine Gelles, director of DOE's environmental management office of
disposal operations. Keeping the waste on site where it is generated and adding
protection to keep it safe from terrorists is a better option, said Angela
Crowley-Koch, executive director of the Oregon Chapter of Physicians for Social
Responsibility. Keith Harding of Hood River had another suggestion for where to
store the waste -- a certain ranch in Texas, he said, alluding to President
Bush's home.

Another public meeting will be held at 6 p.m. today at the Red Lion Hotel, 2525 N. 20th Ave., Pasco.