The public meeting in Portland tonight is to take comments on the proposed settlement of litigation related to the construction and start-up of Hanford's Waste Treatment Plant (vitrification facilities), and a schedule to retrieve waste from Hanford's single-shell tanks. The settlement consists of a Consent Decree and changes to the Tri-Party Agreement.
As part of the overall settlement package, the State of Washington has gotten a commitment that DOE will continue a moratorium on the importation of certain kinds of waste to Hanford. In 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a Record of Decision that selected Hanford and the Nevada Test Site as destinations for disposal of potentially huge amounts of low-level and mixed low-level radioactive waste. Due to litigation and other issues, DOE has not been able to bring low-level and mixed low-level waste (with a few limited exceptions) to Hanford since prior to 1999. The agreement will continue this moratorium on waste importation until at least 2022, when the Waste Treatment Plant is supposed to be in full operation. The result of this is that cleanup will have occurred at many DOE sites across the country from 1999 until 2022, and all of that waste will end up going somewhere other than Hanford.
Hanford is still a potential destination for the disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) waste and for the potential storage of mercury. Both of those actions are currently being examined through separate environmental impact statements. Neither the GTCC nor the mercury was a part of the litigation that is being settled. Based on comments that have been raised so far, there is some sentiment that the moratorium on waste importation should include these and other wastes.
Ken Niles
Assistant Director
Oregon Department of Energy
625 Marion Street NE
Salem, OR 97301-3742
See also commentary by Alliance for Democracy on the Hanford email list at
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hanford/message/2928
There is also commentary on the Hanford Watch home page at
http://hanfordwatch.org
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