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A Review of DOE's Accelerated Cleanup Program and State-Based Compliance Agreements.
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Mr. Michael Wilson
Good
morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify today. The
Tri-Party Agreement is at a crossroads. Much
of the preparatory work and planning called for in the original document is
done. It is now time to adopt
schedules for final, accelerated cleanup of the Columbia River Corridor,
site of the nine production reactors; the Central Plateau where several massive
Plutonium production facilities were located; and retrieval and treatment of the
54 million gallons of highly radioactive waste in Hanford's 177 aging
underground storage tanks. History: Let
me set the context for the Hanford Tri-Party Agreement. In
the late 1980s, the Department of Energy's nuclear facilities, including
Hanford, were just emerging from a long history of secrecy, self-regulation, and
an emphasis on production over worker, public and environmental health and
safety. There was ample evidence
that the Department and its predecessor agencies had not been honest about the
hazards at Hanford, and that the cultural shift from the production-in-secrecy
mode to environmental cleanup would not be easy.
It would have been grossly negligent for the State of Washington not to
have moved to enforce its laws and regulations to protect public health and the
environment. In
this context, the 1989 signing of the Tri-Party Agreement between the State, EPA
and Energy to guide this change and the cleanup was a major achievement -- the
nation's first Department of Energy complex regulatory agreement. It
was a mutual decision to work together rather than fight, and to spend money on
fixing the problem not in court. We made the right choices in 1989. Since then the TPA has served both the people of the
Northwest and the federal government well. At
its core the TPA gives the Department of Energy time to bring Hanford into
compliance with basic environmental laws. We
realized that the site was grossly out of compliance with the requirements of
several laws with no hope for a timely fix and that rigorous enforcement would
achieve nothing. The whole purpose of the TPA was to bring flexibility to an
otherwise rigid regulatory scheme. Beyond
that our three basic goals for the TPA were: Bring current waste management
practices up to present-day environmental standards; safely treat and dispose of
hazardous wastes and contaminated facilities; and clean up areas where past
practices spread contamination in the environment. But
the TPA has a broader role, too. We
think of it as a contract with the people of Northwest that Hanford will be
cleaned up. It is also a primary
portal for those same northwesterners to influence priorities, end points and
the balance of risk and cost at the site. Early
on, the TPA did contain many milestones for plans and reports -- not concrete
cleanup. It reflected the fact that
we didn't know everything in 1989. We
didn't force rigid compliance dates on Energy when we didn't know exactly how we
were going to fix a problem or how long it would take. We knew we had to be
flexible on both sides in order to be successful.
And so the TPA has been changed over 300 times since 1989.
Nearly all of those changes have given Energy more time to accomplish the
cleanup goal -- something that has been pointed out to us by our stakeholders. We
have used the dispute process outlined in the TPA many times also, and in most
cases we have reached agreement. Only
once have we been forced to issue a penalty for missing a milestone -- and it
was a big one for us -- failure to start construction of the tank waste
treatment plant last year. We
reserved the big hammer for a big issue and it was absolutely appropriate.
In the end we will probably not collect a single dollar of the penalty
because we accomplished our goal: Energy
got back on schedule to meet the 2007 start of operations milestone in the TPA.
We're not about collecting fines. We're
about getting cleanup done. The
TPA has kept us out of much more trouble than it has created.
A vision of what the world might have looked like without the TPA is the
result of Energy failing to pump liquids from the old single shelled underground
tanks on time. We took the issue to
federal court when it looked like the TPA would not do the job.
We wasted countless hours of technical staff time and costly attorney
time in getting to a court filed agreement.
It's a good agreement and one that Energy has been careful to honor.
But the burdensome process, the inflexibility of the result and the cost
in time lost to productive cleanup should tell us this is not the way to go.
I'd
like to reiterate and leave you with two points to remember on the Tri-Party
Agreement: First, it has been
very flexible and dynamic, constantly adjusting to new technologies and
information gained from experience. And
second, the Tri-Party Agreement is a device designed to give the Department of
Energy extra time to come into compliance with federal and state laws.
But Energy will be held accountable for the cleanup of Hanford and
responsible for compliance with state environmental laws, just like other
businesses or industries in the state. Compliance
is not discretionary. Plans
for Acceleration: I'd
like to shift gears a little and talk about our perspective on and involvement
in the plan to accelerate cleanup at Hanford.
In
the 13 years since signing the Tri-Party Agreement, we've had four presidents,
six Secretaries of Energy and many Assistant Secretaries in Washington D.C.
We've also had several management teams at the Hanford site.
With each change there has been one constant: the initial assumption that
oppressive regulation under the Tri-Party Agreement has constrained progress
and, in fact, was a primary reason for the slow progress at Hanford.
At
least three times in the last ten years we have invested significant time in
working with the Department of Energy, developing working relationships and
educating them on the flexibility of the State of Washington and the document
that has served us so well -- the Tri-Party Agreement. In
each case, I believe, the Department of Energy leadership has left with an
appreciation for our reasonable and pragmatic approach and the flexibility of
the TPA. So
when one of the first things we saw from Secretary Abraham was a letter to
Governor Locke pointing to the need to re-look at "old inflexible
agreements" our initial reaction, coming from a cynicism developed over the
years, was "Here we go again.." Last
year, long before the Department of Energy headquarters driven approach to
acceleration was in place, the State of Washington, the Environmental Protection
Agency and both the Richland Operations Office and the Office of River
Protection engaged in a process to speed cleanup.
The Cleanup Constraints and Challenges process -- or "C3T"-- is
a mutual attempt to accelerate cleanup and bring site budgets, work plans and
contracts into alignment under the Tri-Party Agreement. Our
caveats on entering this process were that there must be a rededication to the
TPA as the document guiding the Hanford cleanup AND that there would be
no lessening of cleanup standards. Starting
last summer the top management of the three parties and site contractors met
several times and agreed on common principles and goals.
Applying those principles, we negotiated new TPA milestones throughout
the fall and winter. We agreed to
TPA changes that support accelerated cleanup along the Columbia River and on the
Central Plateau. Separately, we
also reached agreement on new milestones for constructing the Tank Waste
Vitrification Plant. A substantial
portion of the Tri-Party agreement was in play during that time. We
were well along a course toward accelerated cleanup when the 2003 budget and
"accelerated cleanup account" were announced this spring. So, once the
"official" accelerated planning process started we were able to
quickly develop our "Letter of Intent" pledging to pursue several
approaches to time and cost saving and began working with Energy on its
Performance Management Plan. In
the case of Hanford the changes to the TPA that came out of our collaborative
process drove the content of our Letter of Intent and much of the site
Performance Management Plan -- not the reverse.
We have not given anything up in the form of reduced cleanup, nor do we
intend to. Nor were we blackmailed into negotiating away the Tri-Party
Agreement on the promise of additional cleanup funds.
Funding or not, we expect Energy to meet its new TPA commitments.
At
the same, time I think we were able to show the new administration, especially
Assistant Secretary Roberson, that the regulators and our agreement are flexible
-- but within clear limits. Additional
issues: There
are many details yet to be worked out in this continuing story.
Two examples: On
Tank Waste Retrieval: Reclassifying
the tank waste and simply leaving it in place will be a major issue for us -- we
are not there at all. We have
Tri-Party Agreement requirements that speak to retrieving waste from the tanks.
The Department of Energy has agreed to conform to those requirements and
use the TPA process. That
commitment is included in the Performance Management Plan.
But the proof of that process is yet to come.
We expect that Energy will attempt to get at least 99% of the waste from
each of the Hanford tanks per the TPA requirements. On
Tank Waste Treatment: There has been a
great deal of skepticism about Energy's commitment to build the Tank Waste
Vitrification Plant and to vitrify the tank waste.
I'm extremely pleased at the start of construction of the vitrification
plant this past week. This is a
great event for all of us. Energy
has talked about using other technologies to treat some of the tank waste.
We are not opposed to exploring supplemental technologies that
meet disposal and stability standards and speed waste treatment.
We have agreed to take part in that exploration as long as the
vitrification plant proceeds according to current plan.
This is no time to once again change horses.
We
believe there can be smarter cleanup, more cost-effective cleanup, and
accelerated cleanup within the terms of our agreement.
What there cannot be-and what we cannot accept-is less cleanup.
Less cleanup is not accelerated cleanup -- it's just less cleanup.
Contamination left in the soil and groundwater under Hanford will remain
a threat to the Columbia River and health of the people of the Northwest for
hundreds, even thousands of years. We
will be vigilant in protecting both the people and the River.
And we believe our Tri-Party Agreement provides the best framework for
our vigilance. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee for this opportunity to speak to
you today.
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