Re: AW: Hanford Site cleanup standards

[Susan L Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

The DOE is supposed to consider "NEPA values" during decision-making for 

its environmental cleanups.  This includes assessment of risks for 

workers and to the public from transportation, etc.



As an example at Oak Ridge, the DOE has decided not to cut up the 

converters out of the K-25 and K-27 plants prior to disposal due to the 

worker risk involved.  Because they will be disposed in an on-site LLW 

cell (instead of going to Nevada Test Site at a 10x cost), the public 

has some concern regarding how the overall capacity will be affected 

(cutting them up would result in significant volume reduction) and 

whether void spaces might lead to cover collapse as the carbon-steel 

converters rust away over time.  This is the type of trade-off that 

we're looking at.  Not cutting up is cheaper and has less worker risk. 

Cutting up is more beneficial for expensive disposal cell capacity and 

long-term integrity.



Another example is the decision to pump the tritium-contaminated 

groundwater at Brookhaven, truck it down to Tennessee, and allow a 

treatment firm to blend it in its LLW incinerator (staying within air 

permit standards) for disposal.  This raises the risk of vehicular 

accident and exposure to the radioactivity far beyond what it would have 

been if that contaminated water was left in the ground to decay 

naturally.  But I guess us redneck Tennesseans don't matter to those 

high falutin' New York celebrities.



The other part of the equation I've not seen discussed in this thread is 

that of protecting wastes left in situ or sites left contaminated 

effectively forever.  For those who say that these DOE reservations will 

never be developed, I say look at the explosion of development over the 

past 30 years into areas you never thought would be developed.  A good 

example of what might be faced are the types of problems that are 

arising due to reuse of closed military bases.  Many of these have 

hazardous contamination in soil and groundwater and/or unexploded 

ordnance scattered over wide areas.  This is the "stewardship" problem 

that DOE also faces.  DOE is discovering that the stewardship of a 

closed site has long-term costs that must be factored into the equation, 

if the public is to remain protected from remnant contamination.  And 

who takes this over if DOE is put out of business by Congress?  Seems to 

me the current Secretary of Energy was once in that camp.



Opinions expressed are mine alone.



Susan Gawarecki

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