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n ~ gig, , ~ Y>- " i ,t - ~ vironmental work at the ~ ~ ~ ~ -k"` i site. The TPA, which lists ~ , i specific activities and mile- stones and can fine the DoE I j for missing them, was the ii I template for many other ,ti documents, called compli- _ ~P I ante agreements, governing _ environmental work on a number of DOE sites. Other than the federal deficit, the cost of the work [ha[ the r DoE has committed itself co i in the compliance agree- menu at all of its cleanup I l ' -i sites represents the single greases[ liability of [he U.S. government. By all accounts, the TPA _ - w" was a landmark that en- abled the DOE and Washing- f ton State to begin working together despite deep mis- 4 trust. Because it is a legally enforceable document, the ~ TPA also makes it less likely that the DOE-or Con- gress-will simply give up on the Hanford site in, say, 10 or 20 years. But possibly because of its accomplish- ments, the TPA's flaws are now apparently being over- _ looked. When is was drafted seven years ago, the TPA im- ~ s"f ~ ~ - posed on the DOE a hodge- m '-'x~3 . podge of overlapping and ~~ty, ' ~ sometimes conflicting stale ~a-.,, ~ F' - t~r. and federal environmental § regulations. "The TPA was ~ a puni[ive agreement," ex = -`;~,:n " plains a Hanford veteran ~ . _ LL_ - who wimessed its creation. l REPROCESSING CAM'ON was where irtadiated nuclear fuel was dissolved in nitric acid and Besides the state and fed- chemicalh~ treated in successive "process cells" [o extract its minute quantities of plutonium. The I~''i eral laws, the DOE's conttac- rectangular plates in the floor are the cover blocks for the cells. All the work was done by remo[e- I tors have to continue tom- Iv operated cranes and other machinery to shield workers from lethal levels of radioactivity. plying with existing DOE "orders," which dittate how work must be performed. The 466 or- bons simultaneously, let alone on the puro puts it. So far the state of Wash- ders, says Caputo, the attorney at the type of site we have," notes Gephart of ington and the federal government have Natural Resources Defense Council. the Battelle laboratory. renegotiated the document four rimes are "bvzantine and overlapping. They're What the tangle of regulations and to try to bring i[ more in line with reali- from another era." In addition, the de- external oversight has apparently pre- ry. Eacii renegotiation is "an agonizing pattment and its contractors picked up eluded is a coherent, ra[ional and risk- process, and lots of wade-offs are made," further oversight in the late 1980s in based set of priorities for the complex says Chris Abraham of the GAO's Rich- the form of the Defense Nuclear Facib- as a whole. bfam~ priorities were estab- land bureau. ties Safety Board, an executive-bra?ch lished by the compliance agreements. The absence of a consistent and com- agency that reports to Congress and which set a legally binding timetable plex-wide approach to setting priorities also advises the secrerary of energy. for projects and achievements at the has been cosily. Any problem becomes More recrndg a Hanford advison sites. But the DOE, its contractors and an urgent priority at Hanford-and the i board has consolidated community the state eventually realized that the subject of hundreds of millions of dol- oversight and input "No one has ever schedule set forth i? Hanford's original tars in funding-for largely poli[ical or I, tried to superimpose all these regula- TPA was "wildly unrealistic," as Ca- regulatory reasons. "The history of Han- Han(ord'sNuclearWasteland Sciervnr~cAmErt~cnr+ May 1996 95