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r ?..p 1 A Superfund to the 177 tanks of high- level waste under Yucca Mountain in ing "from current levels [azound $1.4 level waste. The DOE's acquiescence to Nevada. The DOE now says a Yucca billion] to $1.05 billion in fiscal yeaz this dual coverage "foreclosed signifi- repository could not be ready before 1998." Aker that year, funding would cant technological options in the clean- 2015; some experts suspect the opening hold more or less constant for about 40 ~ up of the Hanford tanks and created the will not take place for decades after years. The Battelle report found that "a ' possibility of a potential cost increase in that-if at all. 50 percent reduction in the cost of dean- the range of billions of dollars," accord- Even if the repositories can be put up must be immediately achieved and ~ ing to a January 1996 report by the Na- into use it is unlikely that they could sustained to meet existing commitments ~ tional Research Council. The DOE and contain more than a small fraction of and schedules with the projetted $1.05- its regulators have been attempting to Hanford's waste. Hanford's allocation billion budget." ! ' solve the RCRA/Superfund problem of the hypothetical Yucca repository Given the unlikelihood of trimming I since 1988, with little success. would hold about 6,000 vitrified logs. the price of cleanup so much and, espe- But the high-level waste in Hanford's cially, the legally binding nature of the Troubles Ahead tanks would occupy 20,000 to 60,000 compliance agreements, the U.S. may such logs, according to the Battelle lab- have to reexamine its national priori- S erious as they are, the difficulties the oratory's latest estimates. Hanford's ties. For example, the $6 billion the DOE now faces seem to pale in tom- quantities of transuranic waste have DOE will spend this year to maintain, parison with the ones just ahead. For been estimated to exceed the total ca- stabilize and clean up its weapons tom- example, the TPA requires the DOE to paciry of the New Mexico transuranic plexes is dwarfed by other budgets. The vitrify the high-level waste in the 177 repository-which, like Yucca, would cold war has been over for years, but tanks. A big vittification plane, the fast have to take such waste from dozens of the U.S. will spend about $28 billion ever in the U.S., was built a[ the Savan- other sources besides Hanford. this year on intelligence alone-includ- ~ nah River site in South Carolina; it is Vtrification is one of several crucial ing $8 billion for reconnaissance and $2 billion over budget and six years be- issues whose resolution has been pre- eavesdropping satellites and related pro- I~ hind schedule, according to the Insti- eluded by the precarious relationship gams. At $270 billion, this year's mili- tute for Energy and Environmental Re- between the state of Washington and tary budget roughly equals the antid- search, a Takoma Park, Md., public-in- the DOE. Analysts and, privately, site pared cost of the entire DOE environ- ' retest organization. (Aker innumerable officials ponder such questions as: mental management effort over the next ~ a delays, the plant was finally opened on Should all the tank waste be vitrified? half a century. March 12.) Should the reprocessing buildings be "While I understand the need to cut Aware of the difficulty it would have knocked down? Should the 15,000-ton back on government programs and III in convincing Congress to underwrite reattor blocks and pedestals be hauled make them more efficient, shottchang- another such venture, but obligated by to the 200 Area and buried? Should ing the DOE's cleanup budget will only the TPA to vitrify the waste, the DOE is hundreds of millions of dollars be spent increase the deficit in the long run,° now seeking one or more private tom- pumping and treating groundwater that says Senator John Glenn of Ohio, whose panies to vitrify Hanford's waste. The will never be clean? state has numerots DOE weapons sites. companies would have to build and op- The TPA requires that these ques- "It may look good on paper, but it will i erase the vitrification plant, adhere to bons be answered in the affirmative- only put off the day of reckoning. If we strict safety standards and assume all even though rigorous technical analyses don't get a handle on this mess now, fu- financial risk. The DOE would pay for have argued against such moves. For mre generations will be lek with a bal- the finished glass logs, enabling the example, some studies have suggested loon payment constituting both an en- firms-in theory-to profit. Most ob- converting the gargantuan reprocessing vironmental and budgetary disaster' servers like the idea but are skeptical: buildings co low-level waste reposito- ~ "One of the big problems the DOE has ties. But the TPA currently tules out the had is inability to shik risk to a private possibility. Other problems also await Further Reading company, so that if there is an unantil- solurions, including finding an ultimate pared expense, or a catastrophic event, destination for Hanford's many tons of ON THE HOME FRONT: THE COLD WAx the private company suffers," notes spent nuclear fuel and plutonium. LEGACY of THE HANFORD NUCLEAR SrrE_ What ma final) force the issues is, Michele S. Gerber Universlry of Nebraska Abraham of the GAO. Y Y Press, 1992. Aker the waste is vitrified, the DOE as always, money. "A big vitrification IjpNFORD TANK CLEAN UP: A GUIDE 70 must take away all the glass logs, as plant will be real money," Says West- UNDERSTANDING THE TECHNICAL ISSUES. well as pan of Hanford's transuranic inghouse Hanford president LaMaz Roy E. Gepharc and Regina E. Lundgren. waste, and place them in permanent re- Trego. "So it will have to compete with Technical Reporc PM-10773,1995. Avail- positories in other slates. That is what plutonium disposirion, Medicare, ev- able from Pacific Northwest Laborarory. Washington State desires and the TPA erything-I believe that, in their hears, IMPROVING THE ENVIRONMENT: AN EVAL- stipulates. Standing in the way of this the regulators know there will be a bi UATIOrJ OF THE DOE'S ENVIRONMEMAL g MANAGEMENT PROGRAM. National Re- outcome, though, are vemendous ob- discussion on this in the end," he says. search CouncB, 1995. stales. State opposition has blocked That end, howeve>; is fast approach- TRAIN WRECK ALONG THE RIVER of MoN- the opening of a repository for trans- ing. DOE budges, like those throughout EY: AN EVALUATION OF THE HANFORD uranic waste (contaitung plutotium or the federal governmeen[, are being re- CLEANUP. Steven M. Blush and 'Thomas other elements with atomic numbers doted. An unreleased study by Battelle H. Heitman. Report for the U.S. Seaare greater than 92) in New Mexico and considered cleanup strategies in light of Cotrnnittee on Energy and Natural Re- sources, Ivlarch 1995. the construction of a repository for high- an antilpated decrease in armual ftmd- Han(rnd's Nuclear Wasteland SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN May 1996 97