EPA, HAB Concerned Over DOE Deadlines

A fine example of the "gubment" not at work...

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

The Department of Energy chose to suspend work to meet 23 legal cleanup deadlines at Hanford without making adequate attempts to work with its regulators, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA and the Hanford Advisory Board reacted last week to DOE's announcement that it would miss the deadlines for cleanup in central Hanford because of too little funding in the budget for fiscal 2009.

DOE wants to focus the money it does have in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 on cleaning up the area near the Columbia River and preventing contaminated ground water from leaving central Hanford.

"The board continues to be concerned with potential delays in the cleanup of the Hanford Site caused by a lack of funds," the board said in advice it issued to DOE Friday.

Earlier in the week EPA sent a letter to DOE reminding it that the deadlines legally required by the Tri-Party Agreement are still in place, unless its regulators -- EPA and the Washington State Department of Ecology -- agree to changes.

"DOE has chosen to unilaterally suspend work on a number of milestones without providing Ecology and EPA with a timely opportunity to review and comment on budget appropriation and funding allocation actions and without making any prior attempt to reach agreement on appropriate adjustments in workscope or milestones," said the letter signed by Larry Gadbois, acting EPA Hanford program manager.

The work that DOE is suspending will significantly impact the pace and overall cost of cleaning up Hanford, the letter said.

"Undoubtedly there are milestones in addition to those listed that will be affected as much of the cleanup work at Hanford is interdependent," Gadbois wrote.

The deadlines that will be missed include work to retrieve temporarily buried radioactive waste, treat it and other waste, and prepare waste contaminated with plutonium for shipment for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Deadlines to build facilities to treat waste that is so radioactively hot it must be handled with remotely operated equipment also are at risk.

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