Science should determine how Hanford nuclear waste gets cleaned up — not political posturing.
Yet the day after Jennifer Granholm was sworn in as the Biden administration’s Secretary of Energy, two high-ranking Washington state officials fired off a letter asking her to rescind a Trump-era decision regarding Hanford cleanup.
Did they confer with Tri-Cities leaders beforehand? No.
Their letter purposely leaves out known concerns by the community most affected by federal decisions at the Hanford site. Instead, state officials framed the issue of re-classifying high-level nuclear waste as a dangerous relic from the previous administration that must be thrown out.
This is a big deal.
Tri-City scientists and engineers closest to the issue say if nuclear waste is defined by its characteristics and risk, then significantly more Hanford waste can be classified as low-level and treated more quickly.
The new label would also save a massive amount of money. Department of Energy officials told Congress that reclassifying tank waste could save up to $210 billion at Hanford.
But David Bowen, state Ecology’s nuclear waste program manager, told the Herald that DOE, under the previous federal administration, “attempted to grant itself the authority to define what is and is not high-level waste without oversight or consent from regulators or the surrounding community.”
The community does not want to give DOE carte blanche over how to classify Hanford nuclear waste, said David Reeploeg, Vice President for Federal Programs at TRIDEC.
“It’s absurd,” Reeploeg said. “We are dumbfounded.”
If scientists determine that nuclear waste is no longer high-level, treating it like it is highly radioactive adds unnecessary expense and time to the cleanup process, as well as risk to the community.
What’s even more infuriating is that while Ferguson and Watson bypassed Tri-City scientists and community leaders, their letter included signatures from people representing Hanford watchdog groups — Columbia Riverkeeper, the National Resources Defense Council and Hanford Challenge.
Gary Petersen, president of the Tri-Cities-based Northwest Energy Associates, told the Tri-City Herald that he was amazed state officials would share a letterhead and signatures with these three groups.
The letter also was signed by a member of the Yakama Nation, which makes sense because the Tribe is an equal branch of government, said Petersen. But including non-government groups is unprecedented.
“I thought Ecology (and the AG for that matter) were supposed to represent all the people of the State of Washington, including we Eastsiders,” Petersen said. He added that including Hanford watchdog groups “to make it sound like they represent the state is just plain wrong.”
Tri-City leaders this week sent their own letter to Granholm on the issue and we hope she takes the community’s response to heart.
Most importantly, the Tri-City letter counters the state claim that the updated classification policy is not based on science.
But that is “patently false,” said Reeploeg.
In fact, the classification change has been supported by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine; the Government Accountability Office; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and six DOE national laboratories.
We may have a new DOE head under a new presidential administration, but issues still should be considered based on science, facts and discussions that include all stakeholders.
There’s no reason to change a Hanford policy just because it was made while Trump was in office.
