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United States: DOE Proposes Waste Disposal Cuts U.S. Department of Energy cleanup “czar” Jesse Roberson has proposed a dramatic change in the way that officials would deal with the 53 million gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste at the Hanford former plutonium production facility in Washington, the Tri-City Herald reported last week. In a memo to the department’s budget office, Roberson proposed cutting vitrification programs at Hanford by at least 75 percent. Vitrification is the process used to turn potentially leaky nuclear waste into glass. The Hanford plant has more “tank waste” stored in its 177 underground tanks than all other Energy Department sites combined, but it is the only Energy Department site without a vitrification plant, the Herald reported. Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, circulated the department memo during a board meeting Dec. 6. It addressed efforts by the department to reduce the estimated 70 years and $300 billion necessary to clean up waste at nuclear weapon production plants. Roberson was looking for cheaper ways to dispose of wastes over the long term, said Todd Young, a spokesman for U.S. Representative Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). The Energy Department proposal would not affect cleanup measures over the next decade, which would address 10 percent of the waste, he said. The proposal angered many advisory board members and other officials. “I don’t think we have [an Energy Department] that is reflective of the wishes of the Northwest,” said advisory board member Greg DeBruler. “We have an agency reflective of the Washington, D.C., beltway.” U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said, “It is time for the administration to understand that we will not let them renege on the promise made to clean up Hanford.” Board members and other officials also cautioned that they did not yet know the context of the memo—whether it represents a brainstorming idea or a serious policy consideration and whether the 75 percent figure is arbitrary or backed by specific studies. The board planned to ask Roberson for clarification, the Herald said (Stang/Cary, Tri-City Herald/Nuclear Control Institute release, Dec. 7).
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