HANFORD CLEANUP
DOE Should Take Actions to Improve Inspections and Oversight of Contaminated Excess Facilities
U.S. Government Accountability Office | 2/24/2020
What GAO Found
The Department of Energy (DOE) has taken some actions to evaluate the physical causes that contributed to the May 2017 partial collapse of the Plutonium Uranium Extraction (PUREX) Tunnel 1, but has not determined the programmatic causes that led to the collapse, such as by completing an accident investigation or a root cause analysis, among other things ... By conducting a root cause analysis to determine any programmatic weaknesses that contributed to the collapse of PUREX Tunnel 1, and taking
action to address any identified weaknesses, DOE will have greater assurance that another, similar event will not take place.
According to a DOE report and GAO's review, although the Hanford contractor is generally conducting routine surveillance inspections of contaminated excess facilities, these inspections have weaknesses and GAO found that DOE has not ensured requirements are fully met ... Without conducting comprehensive inspections, RL cannot ensure that it is meeting all of DOE's S&M requirements, such as addressing aging degradation and obsolescence of some facilities, and preventing other potential events
similar to the PUREX tunnel collapse.
In addition, GAO's review of oversight reports since 2013 by DOE headquarters offices responsible for evaluating field office operations found that none of these assessments focused on RL's management and oversight of the contractor's S&M activities. DOE's Oversight Policy requires DOE to conduct independent oversight to the extent necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of DOE field office oversight of contractor activities. Without conducting periodic assessments or audits focused on RL's
management and oversight of the contractor's S&M activities for contaminated excess facilities, DOE does not have assurance that RL is overseeing S&M activity in a way that ensures these facilities are inspected and maintained in a safe and compliant condition pending final cleanup.
Why GAO Did This Study
DOE's Hanford site in Washington State contains thousands of contaminated excess facilities and waste sites that remain to be cleaned up. In May 2017, a partial roof collapse at a waste storage tunnel facility for one of the former plutonium nuclear processing plants raised questions about the S&M of Hanford's excess facilities and how RL prioritizes cleanup of these facilities.
GAO was asked to review DOE's cleanup of Hanford's contaminated excess facilities, including how DOE ensures that the Hanford Site contractor inspects and maintains facilities. This report examines, among other things, (1) DOE's actions to evaluate the causes of the PUREX tunnel collapse, and (2) the extent to which DOE ensures that S&M of Hanford's contaminate excess facilities meet DOE requirements.
GAO reviewed DOE documents, administered a questionnaire to collect S&M information about 18 selected facilities representing the majority of the Hanford facilities cleanup effort, conducted in-depth reviews of selected Hanford facilities, and interviewed DOE and Hanford cleanup contractor officials.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that DOE (1) analyze the programmatic root causes of the tunnel collapse, (2) routinely conduct comprehensive inspections of contaminated excess facilities and take timely action as warranted, and (3) assess RL oversight of S&M of Hanford excess facilities. DOE agreed with GAO's recommendations and stated that it is taking steps to implement all of them by December 2020.
Read the full GAO report here.
Read the Tri-City Herald's story, 'GAO finds DOE program to prevent radiation release inadequate,' here.
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NUCLEAR WASTE
Trump's Nevada play leaves nation's nuclear waste in limbo
Politico | 2/22/2020
President Donald Trump is seeking to woo Nevada voters by abandoning the GOP’s decades of support for storing the nation’s nuclear waste under a mountain northwest of Las Vegas — a move that could drag the White House into an unsolvable political stalemate.
Trump, who is targeting a state that he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016, announced the turnabout in a tweet this month, writing: “Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!” He also pledged to find “innovative approaches” to find a new place to store the 90,000 metric tons of nuclear plant leftovers stranded at 120 temporary storage sites — an impasse that is on course to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.
Some lawmakers also fear that Trump is undermining their efforts to work out a compromise in which some states agree to host a small number of interim waste storage sites while the search for a long-term solution continues.
Despite Trump's promise to find an "innovative" solution, it's not clear how that will be developed. The federal government is already on the hook for $28 billion in liabilities to utilities, and it spent $15 billion before it shelved the project. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said the administration would create a working group, but neither DOE nor the White House had any details on such a group — and each referred questions to the other.
Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who respectively chair the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, argue that Trump’s tweet may provide a jolt to efforts to move bipartisan legislation that would establish a consent-based process for siting nuclear waste facilities. The law would also create a new federal organization to manage the material.
Murkowski said last week that Trump’s reversal came as a complete surprise but that she had already spoken with colleagues interested in making a new push on the consent-based siting legislation in light of it.
Read about DOE's High Level Waste Interpretation
Have questions about DOE’s recent high-level waste (HLW) interpretation? Download ECA’s Key Points and FAQs on the issue to better understand what ECA believes are the potential benefits of implementation.
Interested in learning more? Read the ECA report “Making Informed Decisions on DOE's Proposed High Level Waste Definition” at www.energyca.org/publications
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