Wash. sues feds over Hanford nuclear site cleanup

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RICHLAND, Wash. — Washington state is suing the federal government to seek a faster cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation, after nearly 18 months of negotiations failed to produce an agreement.

“In Washington state, we have been patient. In Washington state, we have been reasonable. And today, our patience has simply run out,” Gov. Chris Gregoire said Tuesday. “They were steadfast on putting us in a legal position that is not good for the people of this community.”

Gregoire said she was willing to accept deadlines proposed by the Energy Department, which manages the cleanup. But the Justice Department refused to make those deadlines enforceable in court, she said, leaving the state no choice but to sue in U.S. District Court.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/6132502.html

Cleanup extension asked for Hanford

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“RICHLAND — Federal officials are asking for more time to finish cleaning up the central part of the Hanford nuclear reservation, saying the federal budget requires that cleanup work first must be done along the Columbia River.

A letter requesting extensions on 23 cleanup deadlines was sent Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy to the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Ecology, the Tri-City Herald reported.”

Hanford is the nation’s most-contaminated nuclear site, a legacy of producing fuel for atomic bombs dating from the 1940s. Cleanup deadlines are part of the Tri-Party Agreement between the three agencies.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008368729_hanford09.html

Hanford mystery cylinders to be tapped

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“Two mystery cylinders found in a Hanford burial ground will be opened Saturday in the center of the nuclear reservation when few workers are on duty as a safety precaution.

One of the compressed gas cylinders may hold a poisonous gas that was used as a chemical weapon in World War I. And both cylinders are suspected of containing highly corrosive chemicals.”

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/kennewick_pasco_richland/story/376208.html

DOE cleanup chief Quits- Hanford

Jim Rispoli decied to call it quits in Hanford today.

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“Jim Rispoli, the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for environmental management, told colleagues today that he’s resigning effective Nov. 20.

As assistant secretary, he heads DOE programs for cleanup at Hanford and other nuclear weapon sites.”

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/945/story/373255.html

HANFORD: Litigation still possible to enforce cleanup

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

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Hanford The state of Washington will go to court to enforce Hanford cleanup requirements only if it’s a better way to serve the state’s interests than any agreement it can negotiate with the federal government.

That’s what state Attorney General Rob McKenna told the Tri-City Development Council and the Hanford Communities in a reply to their letter of concern over the renegotiation of the Tri-Party Agreement.

The two agencies told the state and the Department of Energy earlier this month that if negotiations over the Tri-Party Agreement fail, Hanford cleanup and the economy of the Tri-City area will suffer.

The state is expected to take legal action if the agreement, which sets legally binding deadlines for cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation, cannot be renegotiated.

DOE is behind schedule on major cleanup projects with no hope of meeting deadlines on them.

“I would prefer that these negotiations conclude with a binding agreement that puts Hanford cleanup back on track,” McKenna wrote. “… However, we cannot settle a potential lawsuit at any cost.”

Any negotiation agreement “must be strong and enforceable and minimize the chances of any future similar delays in the DOE’s work,” he wrote.

Hanford begins waste retrieval

Hanford begins waste retrieval
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

HANFORD — Hanford workers began retrieving radioactive and hazardous chemical waste from Tank C-110 this week.

They’re hoping it marks the first sustained effort to retrieve solid waste from leak-prone underground tanks since late July 2007 when a spill of waste stopped operations.

It also ends CH2M Hill Hanford Group’s efforts at the tank farms on a positive note. New contractor Washington River Protection Solutions takes over operations of Hanford’s tank farms Oct. 1 under a $7.1 billion contract.

CH2M Hill has completed removing waste from seven Hanford tanks and has done some work to retrieve solid wastes from four more, including Tank C-110. It also removed pumpable liquid from all 149 of Hanford’s leak-prone single shell tanks.

Waste left from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons programs is being pumped from single-shell tanks into 28 sturdier double shell tanks to await treatment and disposal.

“Removing the waste from these single shell tanks is a priority for (the Department of Energy), a necessary step to protect the nearby Columbia River and prepare for future operations at Hanford’s vitrification plant,” said Stacy Charboneau, DOE assistant manager for tank farms, in a statement. The vitrification plant will turn much of the tank waste into a stable glass form for disposal.

The past year has been difficult for CH2M Hill after a spill in July 2007 stopped waste retrieval until early this summer.

Then retrieval resumed on Tank C-109, but had to stop after several weeks because of a mechanical problem with a promising new type of robot.

However, CH2M Hill Hanford Group believes it can use proven technology to retrieve waste from Tank C-110.

While Tank C-109 had a hard heel of waste left in its bottom that was difficult to break up, Tank C-110 has sludge in its bottom that should be less difficult to maneuver and pump out.

It is using modified sluicing, a technology that uses a nozzle to spray the waste inside the enclosed, underground tank with liquid to break it up and move it toward a pump for removal from the tank.

The tank, built in 1946, has 177,000 gallons of sludge and other waste materials at its bottom. Earlier, pumpable liquids were removed from the 530,000-gallon tank.

It is on the list of tanks suspected of having leaked in the past, and modified sluicing typically isn’t the preferred option for those tanks because it adds more liquid to the tank. But at Tank C-110 there are doubts that it really has leaked in the past, and if it did, the leak likely occurred in a portion of the tank above the current waste level.

Rather than using clean water for the sluicing, liquid waste will be used as a spray to reduce the amount of new waste produced in the retrieval operation.

Workers spent three months preparing to start retrieval of Tank C-110, making improvements based on lessons learned from last year’s spill at Tank S-102.

CH2M Hill has installed improved methods to detect any leaks in the 900-foot transfer line between the single-shell and double-shell tanks. The waste is transferred in a temporary above-ground line that includes a hose encased in another hose.

Five new cameras for remote monitoring have been installed. They’re equipped with a high quality zoom, a pan and tilt system and a high intensity spotlight that can be operated by workers at a safe distance to check for visual evidence of potential leaks.

In addition, radiation monitors have been set up at 10 locations along the transfer route. The radiation monitors sound an alarm if abnormal radiation levels are detected, limiting the need for workers to enter areas regularly that could pose a risk.

“Everything we do is focused on worker safety and protection of the environment and this job is no exception,” said Ryan Dodd, CH2M Hill vice president for retrieval and closure operations, in a statement.

Researchers tackle uranium pollution mystery at Hanford

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

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Scientists at Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory believe a research project using 35 newly drilled wells will
help explain the baffling behavior of uranium contamination at Hanford.

A
decade ago, Hanford officials believed uranium contamination at the
nuclear reservation just north of Richland along the Columbia River was
a problem that time would solve.

After the most contaminated soil
was dug up and hauled to a landfill for low-level radioactive waste in
central Hanford, they expected the uranium-contaminated ground water
below it to naturally dissipate.

Instead, levels of contamination remain at up to three times the drinking water standard in the ground water.

“The
plume here has been far more persistent than expected,” said John
Zachara, PNNL chief scientist who is leading a team of experts in
underground geochemistry, hydrology and microbiology on the research
project.

They’re hoping that with the array of new wells equipped
with sophisticated monitoring devices they will be able to get to the
bottom of the mystery of how uranium behaves deep underground.

“We’re looking at some very aggressive technology,” said Mike Thompson, Department of Energy hydrogeologist.

With
the $13 million research project, scientists believe they will learn
more about how, where and when uranium binds to the soil, moves with
the ground water, then binds with the soil again, with some of it
eventually reaching the Columbia River.

Among the key issues are
the daily and seasonal fluctuations in the level of the Columbia River,
creating what Thompson describes as a washing-machine action in the
uranium contamination.

Scientists want to know more about how
the different chemistry of the river water and ground water from
various sources affects the uranium contamination, how the ground water
moves and how thin layers of sediment in the soil bind and release the
uranium.

“Sites like these are complicated scientifically and the action is below ground where you can’t look at it,” Zachara said.

During
World War II and the Cold War when plutonium was made at Hanford for
the nation’s nuclear weapons program, the 300 Area just north of
Richland was used to make uranium into fuel for reactors. As a
byproduct of the process, 60 tons of dissolved uranium was released
into the ground in disposal ponds and trenches in the 300 Area.

The
vast majority of uranium contamination was in the top 15 feet of soil,
which has been dug up, Thompson said. But the lighter contamination
deeper in the soil appears to be acting as a persistent and long-term
source to keep recontaminating the ground water near the Columbia River.

This
summer the national lab research project began with the drilling of 35
wells 60 feet deep that form a triangle centered on the location of the
first disposal pond used for the release of uranium-contaminated water.
Each side of the triangular array of wells is about 65 yards long.

They’re
equipped with sensors that can detect temperature and measure
electrical resistivity. That allows an in-depth look at information
such as the consistency of underground soil and the underground
movement of water from different sources — rain, ground water and
river water.

The first use of the wells calls for injecting
tracers of salt and varying temperatures into the ground to follow
their movement.

Later tests are proposed to include reinjecting
contaminated ground water from the uranium plume to observe the
behavior of the uranium.

DOE’s goal is to understand enough about
the properties of the 96 acres of ground water contaminated with
uranium at the 300 Area to find ways to restore it to drinking water
quality.

Although the uranium enters the river just upstream from
the Richland city water uptake, the river almost immediately dilutes
the contamination to easily meet standards for drinking water.

The
research project is planned to be completed in five years. It’s being
paid for with a competitive grant the national lab won in DOE’s
Field-Scale Subsurface Research Challenge.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/kennewick_pasco_richland/story/320453.html

Vegetable oil new Hanford cleanup tool

Vegetable oil new Hanford cleanup tool

This story was published Friday August 22nd 2008

By Shannon Dininny, Associated Press Writer

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) – Researchers at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site last year injected 5,000 gallons of molasses into the soil to try to clean up toxic groundwater near the Pacific Northwest’s largest waterway.

This week, they’re trying their hands at vegetable oil.

Who knew the answers to ridding the Hanford nuclear reservation of wastewater might be in the kitchen? State officials who have long pressured the federal government to clean up Hanford, call the cooking oil a good idea.

“We support these tests, they’re actually pretty inexpensive,” said John Price, project manager of environmental restoration for the Washington Department of Ecology. “We’d like to see them scale up to a full system, beyond just tests, sooner rather than later.”

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Plutonium production for the nation’s nuclear weapons program continued there for four decades, leaving a mess of radioactive and hazardous waste.

High on the cleanup list at the south-central Washington site: an estimated 80 square miles of groundwater, contaminated at levels exceeding state and federal drinking water standards.

Federal officials announced earlier this year they would step up groundwater efforts, particularly for a plume of hexavalent chromium that stretches for 1 1/4 miles along the rivershore. A cancer-causing agent that was used as a corrosion inhibitor in nuclear reactors, the contaminant moves easily with water and is particularly dangerous to salmon in the Columbia River.

Very little of the contamination closest to the river exceeds the federal drinking water standard of 100 parts per billion. However, the area closest to the river exceeds the more stringent standard for fresh-water aquatic life – 10 parts per billion.

Workers installed new wells and additional equipment to triple the amount of groundwater that can be treated. An iron barrier installed in the soil about five years ago breaks down the chromium to a nontoxic form, where it is less mobile and less likely to travel in groundwater to the river.

But scientists also have been researching ways to supplement those treatment methods.

In what was believed to be the first such effort at a nuclear site, they injected 5,000 gallons of molasses mixed with 200,000 gallons of water into a test well last September. The goal was to increase the food supply for natural microbes and remove oxygen from the groundwater, thereby enabling the chromium to convert to the nontoxic form.

So far, the results have been good. After 10 months, levels of toxic chromium in the area of the test well have declined, said Mike Truex, senior program manager for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

However, the molasses might have to be injected every couple of years, he said,

whereas vegetable oil could provide the same results over a longer period of time.

“The difference is, we have molasses that degrades very quickly, or oil that dissolves very slowly but provides enough dissolved material to feed the bacteria to do the same job,” he said.

Researchers believe an injection of 1,500 gallons of vegetable oil, mixed with 50,000 gallons of water, could work for up to seven years.

It’s not the first time vegetable oil has been tried. Near Barstow, Calif., workers injected a number of organic materials, including lactate, ethanol and vegetable oil, into the soil at a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. site contaminated with hexavalent chromium. The Hinkley site was the subject of the hit Julia Roberts movie, “Erin Brockovich.”

Early results showed lactate, basically milk sugar, to be most effective, because the vegetable oil wasn’t as mobile, said Chuck Curtis, supervising engineer for the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Board, which oversees the cleanup.

“Using vegetable oil, it was definitely effective, it just didn’t have easy distribution they wanted throughout the aquifer,” he said.

Various organic materials, including sugar waters, and vegetable oil have been used before in commercial cleanup activities, said Mike Thompson, hydrogeologist for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office. This spring, workers at the Savannah River nuclear site in South Carolina also injected vegetable oil into the ground to treat contaminated groundwater.

At Hanford, researchers want to study their options before implementing a large-scale project, in hopes of getting the best results, he said.

“Our goal is to do this as fast as we can, because we do measure (hexavalent chromium) in the environment, and that’s not acceptable to us,” he said.

http://www.hanfordnews.com/news/2008/story/12012.html

Hanford employees fired over alleged fraud

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

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Fluor Hanford has fired three employees it believes are linked to the misuse of a federal government credit card issued for work at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

A single card was used to make fraudulent purchases over at least the past four years, according to a memo sent by Fluor Hanford President Con Murphy to employees Wednesday. Just one person was allowed to sign on the card.

The purchases included tools and electronic equipment, said Fluor spokeswoman Judy Connell.

Fluor became suspicious of purchases several months ago and started its own investigation. It notified the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General in June as it became apparent fraud likely had occurred. The Office of Inspector General is conducting a criminal investigation.

It’s seeking people who may have information about the misuse of the credit card and Murphy instructed employees who may know something to call investigators at 376-8828.

Fluor Hanford was limited in what it could say about the case because the federal investigation was continuing, Connell said. Fluor Hanford did not identify the people who lost their jobs, their positions or disclose the value of the fraudulent purchases.

About 130 Fluor Hanford employees out of 3,600 have been issued the government cards. The cards reduce transaction fees and lower costs for DOE work, Connell said.

Last year, $26 million was spent on the cards, which employees call P-cards, and about 30,000 purchases were made, she said.

Fluor has “significant oversight” of the program, Connell said.

Each month employees who have been issued a card have to reconcile their spending and sign off on it monthly, and the spending also is reconciled at a higher level in Fluor, she said. Audits also are conducted, she said.

“We are doing our own investigation into how to strengthen the P-card system so this doesn’t happen again,” she said.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/kennewick_pasco_richland/story/285321.html

Hanford waste initiative dead after no appeal made

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

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The state of Washington will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments on the Hanford waste initiative, ending any chance that it will become law.

Tuesday was the deadline for the state to appeal a May decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that found the initiative unconstitutional.

The initiative was passed by voters in every county except Benton and Franklin in 2004, but had not been enacted because of legal challenges led by the federal government.

The initiative was intended to stop more waste from being sent to the Hanford nuclear reservation until waste already there is cleaned up, but critics said it would have unintended consequences.

Both the late Judge Alan McDonald in U.S. Eastern Washington District Court and the 9th Circuit agreed that the initiative violated the Constitution by attempting to override federal authority to regulate radioactive waste.

Although the state disagreed, the heart of its arguments have been how the state law operates. The state did not believe it could interest the Supreme Court in taking a case to consider that, said Andrew Fitz, an assistant attorney general for the state.

The issue also came before the Washington State Supreme Court in 2005 after McDonald said it was appropriate for a state court to interpret a state law before its constitutionality was considered in federal court.

Among the state court’s decision was that the initiative would expand the definition of which radioactive materials the state has authority to regulate.

“Three courts have shown the state does not have authority over the federal government in this arena,” said Gary Petersen, Tri-City Development Council vice president for Hanford programs.

TRIDEC and other critics of the initiative feared it would stop not only radioactive waste but also radioactive materials used in research and medical products from entering the state. In addition, it could upset a DOE plan for some waste to be sent to Hanford, and much of Hanford’s worst waste to be sent to federal repositories in other states for disposal, they said.

“Although today’s announcement was ultimately the state’s decision, the department is pleased the state has recognized the federal government’s constitutional authority to regulate radioactive waste,” said DOE spokeswoman Joann Wardrip.

Sponsors of the initiative, which included Heart of America Northwest, agree that an appeal would hang on the interpretation of state law and that’s not a case the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to take, said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest.

The state’s resources are better used to enforce existing cleanup standards, including the authority to require cleanup rather than allowing DOE to send more waste to Hanford, Pollet said. The nuclear reservation is heavily contaminated from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

In addition, Congress needs to clarify state authority, Pollet said.

Congress allows the state authority over hazardous chemical waste but retains federal authority over radioactive waste. At Hanford, much of the waste is a mix of both, but the 9th Circuit ruling found the initiative appeared to be aimed at regulating the radioactive portion of the waste.

The state attorney general’s office continues to be “committed to putting forth our best legal efforts to support the state’s role in Hanford cleanup,” Fitz said.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/kennewick_pasco_richland/story/283736.html