by Paige Knight
HANFORD.......this name conjures up different reactions, usually perfunctory statements from the average citizen in the Pacific Northwest. "Oh, isn't that place closed yet," is perhaps the most common one.
Hanford nuclear site is a large tract of land in southeastern Washington--560 square miles--containing the largest area of polluted land in the U.S., one of the large tracts of the Columbia Basin shrub-steppe ecosystems, incredible plumes of radioactive and chemical contaminants moving faster than thought possible toward the Columbia River, and the home of the last native salmon-spawning beds on the last free-lowing stretch of the river, the Hanford Reach.
Production of plutonium has stopped at Hanford. The last plutonium reactor was closed in 1987. Slowly, especially with the appointment of Hazel O'Leary as Secretary of Energy by President Clinton in 1992, Hanford's mission changed from bomb production. O'Leary stated in 1992 that the government had a moral obligation to refocus commitment to the cleanup of the widespread contamination at DOE sites like Hanford. Hanford's mission was specifically changed to that of cleanup, with big dreams of turning Hanford and the Tri-Cities into a technological mecca to advance cleanup technologies.
So where are we today in early 1997 after billions have been spent on cleanup? Progress is beginning to show: The K-Basins near the Columbia, full of corroding spent fuel, have been on an aggressive track. Pump and treat projects on some of the worst plumes are slowing down the inevitable contamination in the River. We have begun to have more access to what were once "secret" files and behind-the-scenes decisions to which the public was not privy. DOE's public participation efforts have improved with fits and starts.
So what's wrong? Each year Congress has tightened the cleanup budget for Hanford in an attempt to reform abuses by contractors that have cost the taxpayers millions, if not billions of dollars through waste. The Start I and II treaties signed by Bush and Yeltsin in 1991 started us on the road to weapons dismantlement, bringing to public attention the tremendous amount of plutonium and uranium stockpiles and residues in facilities throughout the weapons' complex. This brought us a plethora of Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) on proposals to cleanup, consolidate, store safely and dispose of the tons of waste and excess weapons materials.
But suddenly with these alternatives of what to do with these most toxic of substances, we are faced with a decision by the bureaucrats and scientists, without broad public debate, to "burn" excess plutonium in breeder reactors, which is seen by many who follow these issues as a revival of the flailing nuclear industry. We are also up against the dilemma of what to do with all the waste that has been produced around the complex over the last 50 years--shove it into the hands of the unwilling Nevadans while we continue to produce more? Or perhaps Hanford could provide a good dumping ground with so many "unused" square miles. (Hanford is considered in almost every EIS as a possible waste site for nuclear wastes.)
At the same time, because of the sagging impetus to keep on track with the START Treaties, the DOE and the weaponeers have decided that we need more tritium to up the amps in our current stockpile of warheads. Tritium, a radioactive gas, boosts the destructive power of nuclear bombs. It decays at the rate of 5.5 percent per year and must be replenished, either by recycling usable tritium form existing warheads or by producing more. Enter Hanford.
The Fast Flux Test Facility, a sodium-cooled reactor (a la the Fermi Reactor built near Detroit in the l960s, which never got off the ground because of a near melt-down), was built at Hanford beginning in 1969 and completed in 1978 at the cost of $647 million. It operated from 1982 to 1992 to test advanced fuels, materials and components to support the next generation of Liquid Metal reactors. It was shut down (put into cold stand-by) in 1992 when it was determined that it no longer had a sustainable mission. FFTF was scheduled to be deactivated this year, saving us the yearly mortgage fee of $44 million, which could have increased the amount of actual cleanup at Hanford.
The Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), a regional citizen oversight board, and public interest groups such as Hanford Watch and Heart of America, have demanded that the money for FFTF cold stand-by come out of the Defense budget since it is a defense mission, and have received a commitment from the DOE that the money will come from deactivation and nuclear legacy funds, with the Nuclear Energy program kicking in $1 million to study the feasibility of restarting the FFTF. Why did the HAB not just pull all support from the FFTF? The region is split on this issue.
One of the ironies of the Tri-City clamor for the restart of the FFTF is that the local governments of Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco have been working hard for economic diversification so that they are not dependent upon the government (DOE) for jobs, since the past 50 years in the plutonium business has brought them wild fluctuations in employment. One of the reasons that the Flour Daniel Company was awarded the prime contract for the cleanup of Hanford was their promise of bringing economic diversification into the region. There have been thousands of lay-offs over the past few years with more to come. Yet the restart of the FFTF for a tritium production mission could take the towns right back to the same government dependency.
The restart of the FFTF also is counter to the cleanup mission that has been strongly touted by the former Secretary of Energy. It would add more waste to an already over-burdened waste stream that has nowhere to go. (The Yucca Mountain high level waste repository in Nevada is still years behind schedule and millions of dollars over cost.) If the FFTF were chosen as the best alternative for producing tritium for our warheads, it is likely that the Fuel and Materials Examination Facility (FMEF) would be used to produce mixed oxide fuel (MOX, a combination of plutonium and uranium) to run the FFTF. Again, more waste streams will be added to the system, adding the burden of radioactive transport to Hanford as plutonium is brought in to fuel the FMEF.
Add to this burgeoning picture of the resurgence of the bomb business the decision at DOE headquarters to use the MOX fuel option (or "burn" option) as one of a two-tiered path to dispose of our excess plutonium stock pile. Washington Water Power System (WWPS) had been an aggressive contender for this option. They would like to have their commercial nuclear power reactor, which has had its share of problems, "retrofitted" as a breeder reactor. The excess plutonium would be free or cheap fuel provided by the government for burning. Sounds like a good solution to all of our problems? Breeder reactors breed more plutonium in the process of "burning" plutonium and, as in all reactors, produce waste that has nowhere to go.
Looking at this whole picture, many of us see the cessation of all cleanup efforts at Hanford and the restart of a multi-faceted nuclear industry at Hanford that is dependent on government subsidies.
Producing tritium at Hanford would be a gigantic step backward in the cleanup of Hanford and thus of the Columbia River. If the cleanup is slowed down any more than it has been by lack of funds and by past mismanagement we will be leaving our children and grandchildren a toxic legacy that could reach epic proportions within the next 100 years if left undone. The progress that has been made in the past six years cannot be turned aside. These decisions must be made with full public awareness, debate and participation. We all have an obligation to look at the issues and let our views be known to the DOE and to Congress. We hold fate in our hands either by our action or our inaction.