Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown first learned through the grapevine about the federal government’s plan to ship radioactive wastes through her city.
Spokane County Commissioner Amber Waldref belongs to the Hanford Advisory Board — a federally funded advisory committee representing state and local governments, labor, tribes, economic interests and environmental groups. At a recent board meeting, Waldref learned that the state of Oregon and the Oregon-located Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation had rejected a plan to ship 2,000 gallons of liquid radioactive wastes from Hanford through northeastern Oregon to Utah and Texas, where the waste would be grouted for permanent storage. So the federal government is now planning to ship the nuclear waste through Spokane instead, Waldref learned at the meeting and told Brown in September.“We were very dismayed, especially when we heard about the opposition from Oregon,” Brown said. Liz Mattson, senior program manager for the watchdog organization Hanford Challenge, agreed: “There are so many red flags.” The transportation would be part of what is called the Test Bed Initiative, an experimental grouting project at Hanford. Environmental service company Perma-Fix is experimenting with mixing Hanford’s low-activity tank wastes with cement-like grout for permanent storage at a to-be-determined site. So far Perma-Fix has done one test run in 2017 with three gallons of tank wastes, successfully trucking that small sample to Waste Control Specialists’ mixed-waste disposal site in Texas. The wastes come from 56 million gallons of radioactive fluids and sludge in 177 underground, leak-prone tanks in central Hanford.The second test run, involving 2,000 gallons, was on hold pending completion of four years of secret negotiations among the U.S. Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology to consider modifying the Tri-Party Agreement, the 35-year-old contract that governs Hanford’s cleanup. Those talks concluded last April. Currently, DOE, the EPA and the state are pondering public comments on the tentative agreement before taking it to a federal judge for approval.Grouting is expected to be part of the plan for making Hanford’s nuclear waste inert and storable for the future. Grouting is cheaper and faster than the current plan of converting all that waste into glass for storage at an undetermined site elsewhere. Regardless of the grouting decision, much, if not the majority, of the radioactive tank wastes will be glassified. The 2,000-gallon transport is scheduled for spring 2025, and will be in two 1,000-gallon shipments of liquid wastes from Hanford through Spokane to Energy Solution’s disposal site in Clive, Utah, and Waste Control Specialists’ site in Andrews County, Texas. The waste sludge will be grouted at those locations, according to DOE. Last month, workers removed 98 percent of the radioactivity — solids and cesium — and transferred the low-activity wastes to six shipping containers approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation.They will be trucked, using federal interstate highways. There is no outer belt highway around Spokane; Interstate 90 goes right through Washington’s second largest city. In an April 25, 2024, letter to DOE, the Oregon Department of Energy said it understood that the 2,000 gallons of Test Bed Initiative wastes would not be trucked through Oregon. If future wastes are sent to Utah and Texas through Oregon, the state prefers that the radioactive materials be encased in solids rather than shipped as liquids.Waste Control Specialists’ Andrews County site has the equipment and permits needed to convert the liquid wastes into grout, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Utah’s Department of Environmental Quality has received a request from Energy Solutions to review the potential disposal of Hanford’s waste; a department spokeswoman said the department is reviewing that request with no date set to complete the effort.Last year, DOE conducted a National Environmental Policy Act assessment for the 2,000-gallon project, which resulted in a finding of no significant impact along the trucking route.Brown wants an environmental impact study to be conducted on the risks of trucking the wastes through Spokane. And she plans for the city to consult with neighboring tribes on this issue before a conversation about their objections with the DOE, the EPA and the Washington Ecology Department.“We know the intended 2,000 gallons is a prelude to millions of gallons later,” Brown said. “We don’t see the homework. … You’re making the decisions before we get all the feedback,” said Nikolas Peterson, executive director of Seattle-based Hanford Challenge. Brown, Peterson and Gerry Pollet, executive director of Seattle-based Heart of America Northwest, another Hanford watchdog organization, say an environmental impact study is needed to assess the potential danger to the Spokane area. Pollet also questions shipping the wastes as liquids, arguing that grouting solid wastes at Hanford would drastically reduce the risk of radioactive spills in an accident in transit. “We’re not going to let this go down without a legal challenge,” Pollet said.While grouting is easier and cheaper than glassification, it has not been extensively tested with Hanford’s chemically complex tank wastes.Part of the agreed-upon tentative plan to modify the Tri-Party Agreement would remove cesium and solids from 22 of Hanford’s 177 underground tanks, which contain a total of 56 million gallons of liquid, sludgy and chunky radioactive wastes. It is undetermined whether those wastes will be shipped as liquids to Utah and Texas, or grouted at Hanford and then shipped. “Liquids are more dangerous than solid forms,” Brown said. Mattson noted that the Hanford Advisory Board has not agreed yet on how grouting should be tackled at Hanford. The Board’s advice to DOE must be almost unanimous among those interests, which gives it political clout on Hanford issues. However, DOE is not required to follow the Board’s advice.“The department has not yet determined where treated [low-level radioactive] waste retrieved from the 22 tanks identified in the holistic agreement will be grouted and disposed. Likewise, the potential routes that could be used to safely transport the treated waste out of the State of Washington to licensed disposal facilities have not yet been defined. We value your input and commit to public engagement as we conduct the necessary analyses and advance towards these future decisions,” said an Oct. 18 letter from DOE to Brown.
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