Nuke-waste site problems persist

Board’s report warns of risks

An unfinished $16.8 billion complex to treat chemical and radioactive waste at the Hanford site in central Washington continues to have problems that risk explosions and radioactive releases from unintended nuclear reactions, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report.

The board's findings are at odds with a much more optimistic assessment offered by the U.S. Energy Department of the efforts to treat the toxic leftovers of decades of atomic weapons production. In a written statement in February, the Energy Department said major problems previously identified by the safety board had been "resolved" and that design work could resume on what the department calls a critical pre-treatment plant needed to process highly radioactive waste.

The latest report is more sobering news for a project that was conceived more than two decades ago but has seen costs increase significantly and has had repeated delays because of safety concerns.

The report's release comes at a difficult time for the board. President Donald Trump's administration is considering a proposal to downsize or abolish the board, which for nearly 30 years has provided independent oversight of defense nuclear sites across the country. The board's backers say this report -- challenging Energy Department assumptions -- is more evidence of its vital review role.

"They don't want to hear what the board has to say, but they absolutely need to," said Dirk Dunning, a retired Oregon Department of Energy engineer who worked on Hanford issues for more than 20 years.

The board has been deeply involved in keeping watch over the development of Hanford's waste-treatment complex, the largest of its kind in the world, on which ground was broken in 2002 on 65 acres of the nuclear reservation. The goal is to transform 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste into glass rods that can be safely put into long-term storage. The process requires a complex engineering effort in part because of the wide range of waste materials stored in 177 underground tanks, more than a third of which have leaked over the years.

But safety concerns, including those cited in the latest board report, have plagued the pre-treatment facility for years even as billions of dollars have been budgeted for engineering, labor, equipment and other costs.

"There are all the same issues and they still haven't been addressed," said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge, a public interest group that has advocated for whistleblowers, workers and accountability during the cleanup.

An Energy Department spokesman at Hanford's Office of River Protection said the board's analysis will be taken into consideration when design work resumes. But it still is unclear when that may happen.

The spokesman, Yvonne Levardi, said that when the Energy Department determines that a plant problem has been resolved, it doesn't necessarily mean it is fixed but that enough progress has been made to resume design work.

During World War II, Hanford was claimed by the federal government as a secret site for producing plutonium that was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Nine reactors would eventually operate at Hanford, with the last one shut down in 1987.

The pre-treatment plant has long been designated as a key part of the cleanup. It will concentrate and then filter out solid high-level radioactive waste that is some of the most challenging material stored in the tanks.

When completed, the pre-treatment plant is expected to contain more than 100 miles of piping and four huge stainless-steel tanks -- each able to hold 375,000 gallons of waste -- that will sit behind steel-laced concrete walls that workers cannot access.

The project is being run by Bechtel National, the lead contractor. By 2010, whistleblowers and the federal safety board had raised concerns over the risks of explosions from the buildup of hydrogen gas in the pipes and the potential for radioactive releases from unintended nuclear chain reactions, known as criticality hazards.

The design challenges have prompted a workaround to process what's known as low-activity waste -- material containing small concentrations of radionuclides requiring less protection for public health than highly radioactive waste. That work is expected to begin by 2022. But the deadline to open the pre-treatment facility has been pushed until 2036. It is intended to handle all waste, including highly radioactive material, such as spent fuel from nuclear reactors.

The board report cites 14 remaining problems. They range from a mixing system that may not operate reliably to a "lack of sufficient technical rigor" in safety assumptions required to handle heavy plutonium particles that pose a risk of criticality.

The board has no regulatory powers to require the Energy Department to take action. But its reports are made public, and the Energy Department is required to respond to the panel's formal recommendations.

A Section on 11/20/2017

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