[ RadSafe ] 60 Minutes feature on Hanford last night

[Muckerheide, James]

Sandy, John, et al.

I sent the 60 minutes piece because it was the subject. We all know here that
the pejorative crap is typical media staging, especially by the TV newsmags.


Here's another cut at the info, also rather biased.  But this and other
recent info/reports indicate that this seems to be yet another DOE project
boondoggle.  DOE hasn't shown any substantial engineering and project
management ability since before Clinch River and ERDA.

See full article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/268605_hanford01.html

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
====================

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/268605_hanford01.html

Hanford cleanup cost soars to $11.3 billion ... if Congress will pay 
Monday, May 1, 2006
By LISA STIFFLER AND CHARLES POPE
P-I REPORTERS

It's costing Americans $1.4 million a day to build a facility to safely treat
millions of gallons of radioactive and toxic waste stored in the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation's leak-prone underground tanks. 

[Related article
- Evidence of new leaks, group reports]


When the project is completed, the bill could total $38 for every man, woman
and child in the nation -- that's if the $11.3 billion price tag doesn't
swell even further. It has nearly tripled in less than six years, making it a
massive taxpayer burden. 

This is a critical time for the project. An increasingly impatient Congress
is now deciding how much money to contribute to the effort -- considered the
most important step in the cleanup of the sprawling desert site on the
Columbia River. Some fear lawmakers could simply wash their hands of it and
walk away. 

"The whole house of cards is ready to collapse," said Gerald Pollet, director
of Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group. 
 

[Photo File
 These double-walled tanks at Hanford each hold 1 million gallons of highly
radioactive nuclear waste from bomb making. Built in 1984, they were later
covered with 5 feet of dirt. The liquid waste that's inside them is slated to
be pumped out and turned into glass.
The challenge of safely disposing of 53 million gallons of deadly waste left
over from decades of plutonium production has caused the U.S. Department of
Energy and its contractors to stumble repeatedly.]


Weak -- even negligent -- management has pushed the project's completion from
2011 back to 2017 or later and driven costs up by billions, according to
reports from government agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and watchdog
groups. 

At the same time, environmental and health risks are mounting. The corrosive
waste weakens the walls of the tanks and the risk of leaks keeps growing,
regulators admit.

The federal officials running the Hanford cleanup and their contractors
apologize for the delays and errors in cost calculations. They promise to do
better. 

"Everything that I do on this project each day is to identify with certainty
what the costs and schedule basis is, and to restore confidence and
credibility in this project," said John Eschenberg, the Energy Department's
manager for the project.

Construction is under way on the massive "vitrification" project, which one
day would turn the waste into a glassy compound that will trap the
radioactive material for safe storage. But the department's contractor --
construction giant Bechtel National Inc. -- has had to put the brakes on most
of the building due to safety and technical problems. 

Countless additional factors have helped drive up costs. They include the
initial miscalculation of the amount and cost of materials needed for the
project and underestimation of the technical and regulatory hurdles facing
the facility. In March, a team of experts identified more than two dozen
issues that could prevent the plant from working as planned. The plant was
expected to operate for nearly two decades.

The mounting setbacks have sent state leaders recently to Washington, D.C.,
to beseech lawmakers to keep funding the costly endeavor near Richland. 

Next week government officials will come to Seattle to explain publicly how
much money is needed to support the Hanford cleanup, including the
vitrification project, and to get feedback on where it's being spent.

The case is getting harder to make. Some worry Congress or the Energy
Department could scrap the vitrification project, perhaps opting to build new
storage tanks and putting the waste there. Another option is using a cheaper,
but less safe, technology for treating the waste plaguing Hanford -- a key
player in World War II's Manhattan Project.
Comments at an April 6 congressional hearing examining Hanford's problems
heightened that fear. 

"I'm convinced now that after learning about the failures of project
management, the neglect of nuclear safety quality assurances and the
uncontrollable costs we will hear about today that this project is on a fast
road to failure," said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio.

Hobson's dark opinion is important because he chairs the subcommittee
providing money for cleaning up Hanford and other Energy Department plants.

Everyone agrees the project is challenging. In the decades since Hanford
fired up the first reactor in 1944, a mishmash of waste has been dumped into
177 tanks in the quest for weapons-grade plutonium. The tanks -- which some
say may have leaked recently -- store millions of gallons of chemically
complex liquids, sludge and chunky salt cake. 

Those responsible for problems with the vitrification project frequently put
much of the blame on its unique nature. 

"After all, it was a first of a kind, never been built anywhere in the world,
much less in the United States," Tom Hash, Bechtel's president of systems and
infrastructure, told Hobson's subcommittee. 

That statement, however, was not entirely accurate. 

Savannah River echoes

Hanford isn't the Energy Department's only radioactive headache. 
South Carolina's Savannah River Site was established in the early 1950s to
produce plutonium and radioactive hydrogen to arm nuclear weapons. 

In 1983, the department began the process of building a vitrification plant
there to treat 37 million gallons of dangerous waste that also had been
stored in buried, leak-prone tanks. 

At Savannah River, just as at Hanford, Bechtel was a prime partner in
building the facility.

And just as at Hanford, the project was beset by major cost overruns, poor
management and technical problems.

In a 1992 report that is similar in tone and findings to recent reviews of
the Hanford project, the General Accounting Office (now the Government
Accountability Office) itemized the problems. The cost, the GAO said, had
soared from an estimated $2.1 billion to $4 billion. The project fell behind
schedule. 

Ineffective management "has been a principal factor contributing to the
tremendous cost growth of the (waste facility) program and the schedule
delays," reported the government investigators. 

"Other factors, such as system testing that identified technical problems and
equipment and design deficiencies" also affected the program's cost and
schedule, the GAO said. 

As with Hanford, DOE officials and the contractors repented and vowed to do
better.

The plant finally opened in 1996 -- three years late. It has produced 2,200
canisters of glassified waste since then, but lingering technical problems
have limited its effectiveness, allowing the capture of only small amounts of
radioactive material per canister. DOE estimates the plant will finish the
job in 2026.

Savannah River has struggled to develop a process that separates high-level
waste from less lethal, low-level waste. Once the process works, it will
speed cleanup because only the worst waste will be sent to the vitrification
plant. A citizens advisory board said last month that the delay could add $1
billion to cleanup costs. 

While concerns raised about the operations are disturbingly similar, some say
comparisons between Hanford and Savannah River are unfair because the
Washington operation is much larger and more complicated.

John Britton, spokesman for Bechtel's Hanford project, said of Savannah:
"It's a very small plant in comparison." 

'Ready, shoot, aim'

Not long before the first drop of concrete was poured at Hanford's
vitrification plant in the summer of 2002, the desert site was flush with
optimism. 

"This really is a watershed year," said Harry Boston, the Energy Department's
manager for the project at the time. "A lot of hard work has been done over
many years and now we are in a position to reap the rewards."

Today, construction essentially has stopped on two of the vitrification
project's three main facilities. While 1,700 builders bustled there a year
ago, that number has withered to about 375. 

The project has embraced a "design-build" strategy in which chunks of the
facility are engineered and construction starts before the overall blueprint
is completed. Critics call it the "ready, shoot, aim" approach, but
supporters say it's a smart, accepted practice. 
Engineering problems have plagued the effort over the years. 

Last year, the government finally heeded earthquake-related concerns raised
in 2002 by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board -- the independent
government board charged with monitoring DOE programs. That again forced
Bechtel engineers to review their plans to make sure the facility could
withstand a potential temblor. 

Construction already had started, but because the plans were "conservative,"
Britton said, "we haven't had to tear anything down or do anything over."

But fixes to some of the equipment may be necessary, said A.J. Eggenberger,
the board's chairman. And more information about the area's earthquake
potential is still needed, he said at last month's subcommittee hearing,
resulting in "continued uncertainty."

That keeps the cost estimates and timelines for completion on shaky ground. 
Bechtel's original contract was for a $4.3 billion project -- a figure that
has ballooned since 2000, topping $11.3 billion. 

The causes for the price inflation and delays are many. First, the initial
cost estimates were too low. Bechtel officials admit they overestimated the
potential productivity of workers and engineers, failing to account for the
decades that had passed since a large-scale, U.S. nuclear project was
launched. The cost of concrete and steel shot up globally since the effort
started. Original expectations for the amount of materials needed also were
too low. The project underestimated technical challenges. The list goes on. 

To help correct for the setbacks, watchdogs are calling for more outside
oversight, such as bringing in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- the
national agency responsible for nuclear safety. 

There are calls to back off the design-build approach so that plans are
closer to completion before the hammering begins. The GAO recommends that
plans are 90 percent finished before building happens. Currently, they're 65
percent complete. 
Clearly, something needs to happen to keep Congress on board. 

At the April hearing, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said Congress was
frustrated with Hanford's slow progress, usually driven "after we whack them
in some way." 

"There's a lot of taxpayer money out here ...," he said. "In the private
sector, we're concerned about timeliness, waste of money."

In response to those concerns, Washington state lawmakers and Gov. Christine
Gregoire have launched an aggressive charm campaign to calm the nerves of
those holding the purse strings. This summer, another analysis is due from
the Army Corps that will more definitely set the costs and timing for the
project. Many folks are not expecting good news. 

"What we can't afford is another cut" in the vitrification plant budget,
Gregoire said last week after meeting with Senate leaders and Energy
Secretary Samuel Bodman. "Every one of these delays costs us time, money and
hurts the environment."

ABOUT THE TANKS
Single-shell 
* There are 149 single-shell storage tanks at Hanford. 
* They were built between 1943 and 1964. 
* They are at least 30 years past their life expectancy. 
* All liquid that can be pumped out has been transferred to double-shell
tanks. 
* 67 tanks have leaked. 
* 30 million gallons of waste remain in the tanks 

Double-Shell 
* There are 28 double-shell tanks at Hanford. 
* They were built between 1968 and 1986. 
* Designed to last 25-50 years, the oldest are past their life expectancy. 
* None is known to have leaked. 
* 23 million gallons of waste remain in the tanks. 

HANFORD CLEANUP
The public can comment on Hanford's planned in two ways: 
*  Attend a public hearing May 9 at the Talaris Conference Center, 4000 N.E.
41st St. (near University Village). Open house at 6 p.m., discussion at 7
p.m. www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/nwp/budget.htm">See an agenda. 
*  Submit written comments to: The Department of Energy, P.O. Box 450, MSIN
H6-60, Richland, WA 99352, or Theodore_E_Erik_Olds at orp.doe.gov or
Karen_Lutz at rl.gov. 
________________________________________
P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or
lisastiffler at seattlepi.com. See the P-I's environment blog at
www.datelineearth.com.
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