RE: Hanford tank waste cleanup

["Conklin, Al" <Al.Conklin@DOH.WA.GOV>]

Excellent points made by Jim Dukelow. Also, in our last legislative session
in Washington, all the legislators from the Hanford region went to bat for
BNFL to have the vitrification plant exempted from property taxes (about $1
Billion) to address the fear that congress wouldn't fund the plant due to
the extra money. The bill they passed was based on the original $6+ billion
price tag. All the legislators are really feeling they've been hoodwinked.
The newest article's stated $15 billion price tag was only for 10 to 15% of
the tank waste, and as Jim pointed out, doesn't begin to address all the
costs associated with those tanks. Rumors are flying everywhere about what
will happen next. Stay tuned.

Allen W. Conklin,Manager 
Air Emissions & Defense Waste Section
Bldg 5 7171 Cleanwater St. 
Department of Health
Olympia, WA 98504
phone: (360) 236-3261 fax: (360) 236-2256 pager: (360) 786-2975

"This message may be confidential. If you received it by mistake, please
notify the sender and delete the message. All messages to and from the
Department of Health may be disclosed to the public." 



-----Original Message-----
From: Dukelow, James S Jr [mailto:jim.dukelow@pnl.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 9:29 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Hanford tank waste cleanup




Sandy Perle wrote:

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 08:42:28 -0700
*rom: "Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>
To: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Hanford Tank Cleanup Now $15.2B

Hanford Tank Cleanup Now $15.2B  April 24, 2000 

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The cost of cleaning up the Hanford nuclear 
reservation's highly radioactive nuclear waste storage tanks has 
jumped to $15.2 billion - more than twice the original estimate, the 
contractor estimated Monday. Earlier this month, the BNFL Inc. had 
offered a nearly $13 billion estimate, up from an initial price tag 
of $6.9 billion. 

    <snip>

Jim Dukelow comments:

Both the AP and -- guilt by association -- Sandy Perle have the Hanford tank
waste cleanup cost wrong.  The $15.2 billion figure is both a bit too big
and
way too small.  It is too big in the sense that some of the Hanford non-tank
waste will also be vitrified in the vit plant BNFL has been designing.  It
is
way too small in the sense that the construction and operation of the vit
plant
is only one component of the overall tank waste cleanup.  DOE and its other
Hanford contractors will be spending money retrieving waste from single
shell
tanks and moving it to double shell tanks (none of which have leaked, by the
way) and staging it for delivery to the vit plant contractor, whomever that
finally turns out to be.  I don't have a figure for the non-vit-plant part
of
the tank cleanup, but I would guess it is approximately equal to the vit
plant
portion of the cost.

The idea that the vitrification of the waste could be privatized in a way
that
would put the technological and political risks of the cleanup on the backs
of
the vitrification contractor and would save DOE money was one of Hazel
O'Leary's
sillier initiatives, although, if memory serves, it was part of a general
administration response to the Republican congressional victories in the
1994
election.  Sort of a "See, we can privatize government functions, too".  The
AP
story notes that $6 billion of the $15.2 billion BNFL estimate is financing
cost, to carry the costs of the project until BNFL's revenue stream BEGINS
in
2007.  That money can be saved with a pay-as-you-go program, with reliable
Congressional funding [Note to natterers: Yes, I know about opportunity
costs].
The "reliable" part of "Congressional funding" is a bit much to hope for.

An editorial in yesterday's Tri-City Herald suggested that DOE ought to ask
BNFL
whether they mean "a thousand million" or "a million million" when they say
"billion".

Best regards.

Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov

These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my
management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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