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A Review of DOE's Accelerated Cleanup Program and State-Based Compliance Agreements.
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Ms. Kathleen Trever
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity today to share with you the State of Idaho's perspective on the Department of Energy's (DOE) initiative for accelerating cleanup of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and related state-based compliance agreements. My
name is Kathleen Trever, and I manage the state of Idaho's program that
monitors DOE activities in Idaho. I
have been involved in issues related to the cleanup of the INEEL for over eight
years. Overview of the State's Perspective on the INEELThe INEEL, one of DOE's major facilities, occupies land in eastern Idaho about the size of Rhode Island. Only 3% of the site's 890 square miles are used, resulting in a huge buffer zone, making the site an ideal place for developing and testing nuclear reactors. The
INEEL played a key part in winning the Cold War, developing a strong nuclear
navy, and advancing the commercial use of nuclear power.
While we encourage the continued use of the lab's valuable assets, we
also expect the federal government to address the site's environmental
liabilities. Environmental challenges INEEL facesThose
liabilities include considerable quantities of spent nuclear fuel and
plutonium-contaminated waste brought from other sites to Idaho for
"temporary" storage, as well as contamination from on-site activities. The
damaged core from the Three Mile Island reactor, brought to the INEEL, so the
nation's leading nuclear scientists could determine what went wrong and how to
prevent similar incidents from occurring, remains stored in Idaho.
Spent fuel from the nuclear naval fleet and other programs and locations
is also at the INEEL waiting for a permanent solution. Tens
of thousands of barrels of plutonium-contaminated waste generated by the Rocky
Flats Weapons site in Colorado and other facilities came to Idaho for decades.
This waste, largely generated at other sites and stored at the INEEL,
makes INEEL the largest stockpile of plutonium-contaminated waste in the nation,
and perhaps the world.
Also at the INEEL is liquid and solid high-level waste, which is both
hazardous and radioactive.
This waste presents particularly difficult challenges in terms of
treatment, storage, transport and disposal. These
Cold War wastes and contamination from site activities now sit atop the Eastern
Snake River Plain Aquifer.
This Aquifer provides drinking water and supports much of Idaho's
agricultural economy, including thousands of family farms, dairies, and a
thriving aquaculture industry. Idaho's efforts to ensure INEEL cleanupFor
more than 30 years, Idaho has worked to ensure DOE addresses INEEL's
environmental liabilities to protect the state's major aquifer and other parts
of Idaho's environment.
For
nearly two decades there were promises with little progress.
Then, as a nation, we determined in the 1980s it was appropriate to hold
our government accountable to most of the environmental standards we imposed on
private industry.
And we learned more about the contamination our nation had created to end
the Cold War and use atoms for peaceful purposes. When
faced with DOE's poor track record in honoring its cleanup promises and its
lack of credibility, Idaho sought firmer commitments. When other options have
not produced results, we have gone to court and used enforcement tools to
protect our citizens.
We prefer, however, to see our resources directed at actual cleanup
instead of legal and administrative costs.
That
is why we sought to negotiate mutually acceptable agreements to bring INEEL into
compliance with environmental standards and fulfill its long-standing promises
for treatment and removal of waste from Idaho. These
agreements have fostered considerable progress. And they have provided a public
forum for discussion of cleanup.
The State and its regulatory agencies have worked with DOE to support
innovative approaches and common sense cleanup requirements, changing our
agreements and restructuring activities as appropriate to achieve tangible
results. INEEL's
cleanup program is making great strides.
Inventories of highly radioactive liquid waste have been cut by more than
half. The
damaged reactor core from Three Mile Island and other spent fuel has moved from
aging storage pools to safer, dry storage.
And shipments of Rocky Flats waste, stored in Idaho for decades, are now
leaving Idaho for the WIPP repository in New Mexico.
We
have encountered some problems, however, such as the Pit 9 project for
demonstrating technology for buried transuranic waste retrieval, the subject of
a hearing before this Subcommittee several years ago.
As DOE's own Top-to-Bottom Assessment realized, these problems often
stem from overly simplistic assumptions, DOE's internal project management, or
a lack of clear focus on tangible results.
We
cannot make DOE's toughest cleanup problems magically disappear or
indefinitely postpone efforts to solve them. The costs, financial and otherwise,
will only go up.
We need a solid investment strategy for reducing uncertainties and moving
forward. Efforts to further accelerate cleanupIn
May, Idaho entered into a letter of intent with DOE and EPA to support
acceleration of INEEL cleanup. DOE recognized that existing agreements provide a
reasonable and flexible framework for advancing our cleanup goals, and that we
can save resources by not reinventing the wheel.
We
are now involved in DOE's efforts to develop performance management plans to
restructure INEEL cleanup work within the framework of existing compliance
agreements. The
collective desire of Congress, DOE and states housing DOE facilities for sooner,
safer and more efficient cleanup is not new.
It's one we strongly support. As
we renew our commitment to sooner, safer and more efficient cleanup through our
participation in DOE's accelerated cleanup initiative, there are certain steps
essential to our success. We
need dependable, sufficient funding, focused management attention, sound
investments in science and technology and improved public confidence in the
cleanup process. While it's healthy to set aggressive goals for completing cleanup, we must not fool ourselves with creative accounting practices or simplistic assumptions. Earlier DOE cleanup plans reduced environmental liabilities and risks on paper, but eroded confidence in cleanup investments when some of the rosy forecasts did not prove out. We are working with DOE to provide a realistic assessment of the nature and extent of the problems to be solved. In
our press to reduce schedule and costs, we must still present investors in
cleanup a clear understanding of programmatic risks, whether they involve
unproven technology, regulatory assumptions, repository availability, decisions
at other sites or public challenge. We
must also clearly define parameters for success that can remain consistent from
one administration to the next. The
state of EM's science and technology program causes some concern. It
is unclear today what criteria DOE is using to develop environmental management
priorities for science and technology. For
example, EM's Office of Science and Technology's latest proposed funding for
FY2003 includes no INEEL projects, although such investments hold considerable
potential for reducing the schedule and cost of two of the site's toughest,
and most costly cleanup issues-high-level waste and buried
plutonium-contaminated waste. The
estimated baselines for these projects are over 10 years and billions of
dollars. If
DOE does not investigate alternatives for these high-risk, high-cost baselines
now, it will be locked into existing options to honor its commitments and keep
from passing these problems onto the next generation.
Some
reform proposals involve transferring materials or responsibilities to other
federal programs, so plans should recognize where costs are truly saved, versus
shifted elsewhere. DOE
began its reform process by negotiating with sites and states fairly
independently. However, plans for
the INEEL and other sites often depend on work in other places for storage,
treatment and disposal. For
acceleration initiatives to succeed, DOE will have to address interdependencies
among sites. Idaho and other states have offered to serve as catalysts for
collective discussions with sites through the National Governors Association DOE
Task Force. Idaho
is also committed to ensure INEEL cleanup is accelerated in a way that is
compatible with the Department's larger mission objectives. DOE has agreed to
develop a strategy for smoothly transferring laboratory functions from the
Office of Environmental Management to other program sponsors. In
closing, Idaho remains committed to meeting our cleanup goals for the INEEL as
efficiently as possible while ensuring we preserve the laboratory's
capabilities for meeting our nation's security, energy, basic science and
environmental needs. We are all investors in successful cleanup. To succeed, we will need more than general pronouncements of schedule and cost savings. We will have to evaluate our problems, recognize uncertainties and determine how to get the maximum return on investment-accelerated cleanup that saves money and reduces risk.
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