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Letter
from Wa. Dept. of Ecology to DOE Office of River Protection re tank
waste cleanup From:
"Lynn Porter" Some background on this is that DOE Hanford's Office of River Protection (ORP), which manages the waste tank farm and its cleanup, is under pressure from DOE headquarters to show progress in cleaning up the tanks. The Washington Dept. of Ecology is a regulatory agency, under Washington state environmental laws, for the tanks. The Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) is a contract between DOE and the regulatory agencies (Ecology and EPA) which regulates Hanford cleanup. ORP has to negotiate with Ecology before changing TPA tank waste cleanup milestones (deadlines). ORP made a public announcement about "accelerating" cleanup without negotiating or reaching an agreement with Ecology. ORP wants to impress Congress and please DOE headquarters by "closing" tanks, but no agreement has been reached on what closure means. Hanford watchers are concerned that DOE may try to cut corners on cleaning up the tanks by redefining some of the tank waste so that it can "close" the tanks with the waste still in them. -- L.P.
Roy Schepens, Manager
Dear Mr. Schepens: I am writing in response to the news announcement by your office on Tuesday about your intent to accelerate the cleanup and closure of tanks at Hanford. The Department of Ecology has some serious concerns, both with the content of your proposal and the manner in which it was announced. At a minimum, the news release breached the accepted protocol between our agencies. This protocol is so important to our success that we must ensure this does not happen again in the future. More importantly, you are well aware that we support cleaning up Hanford faster. However, the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) is and must be the framework for the accelerated actions. The actions described in your announcement have not been reviewed through the TPA. For example, the financial incentives outlined in your proposal to close 26-40 tanks by 2006 may lead to sacrifices in the quality of cleanup, and that is not something we will support unless we are informed and able to reach a mutually acceptable agreement on these issues. As you know, there are well established processes that are crucial to assessing the potential risks to the environment from any proposed actions as well as provide the public an opportunity to review and comment on the proposed activities. These processes include SEPA and NEPA analyses, along with the closure permitting plans that are required before any closure activities can be considered. Your announcement simply disregarded all of these processes. We very much want Hanford to be cleaned up as fast as possible, but cleanup decisions about both speed and substance are to be made through the TPA and announced in a mutually informed way. As a result of your announcement, we are preparing a letter to you that will seek answers to numerous questions we have about the proposal announced the other day. You should receive this letter by the middle of next week. Hopefully, we can reach a full understanding of all of these issues and mutual agreement on the next steps to resolve our differences in the very near future. Sincerely, |