Hanford reactor to be closed

Associated Press

YAKIMA — The U.S. Department of Energy has ordered the permanent shutdown of an experimental reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation that has been without a mission for years.

A restart of the Fast Flux Test Facility is impractical, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Wednesday.

"This ends a seven-year scavenger hunt," said U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a longtime opponent of restarting the reactor. "I think it’s a huge plus for the region, and it will liberate dollars to focus on safety and cleanup and public health."

U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., whose district includes Hanford, said the battle to save the reactor was one worth fighting.

"Of course, I’m deeply disappointed by the decision. We’ve worked too long and too hard not to be," Hastings. said "We all hoped — frankly, we believed — that there was a private market for medical isotopes, and we believed FFTF could help meet that need."

The Bush administration had been studying since August the possibility that the reactor could be operated by private interests to make medical isotopes. But the department concluded that the proposal presented costly operational and legal obstacles.

Though more than 20 years old, the fast flux reactor is the Energy Department’s newest. Large and versatile, it was designed to research advanced forms of nuclear fuel for breeder reactors, which produce as much or more plutonium than they consume.

The government scrapped its breeder reactor program in the 1980s after deciding it had misjudged the nation’s electricity needs.

The 400-megawatt reactor became surplus and in 1992 was placed on standby. The nuclear fuel was removed from the core, but the sodium cooling system has been maintained to permit a possible restart.

The reactor has inspired an unusual degree of loyalty among people at Hanford and particularly among a group of cancer patients and their families, who wanted to see it used to make medical isotopes. Last month, the Cancer Fighters Train Committee started a whistle-stop tour to draw attention to the plight of their favorite reactor.

The Energy Department’s Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, an independent panel appointed to advise the agency on nuclear issues, had called the reactor an "irreplaceable asset," and noted that the nation was quickly losing its ability to test and develop nuclear science and technology.

The government has been debating at least since 1995 whether to deactivate and decommission the reactor.

Last January, the Clinton administration ordered it shut down permanently. After the Bush administration took office, Abraham rescinded the order and began another review.

In August, a new proposal from Advanced Nuclear and Medical Systems to make isotopes was considered, along with a research mission proposed by the Argonne National Laboratory to use the reactor as a demonstration project for nuclear fuels.

"Both proposals, collectively, were deemed to introduce significant liability and funding requirements for the DOE that could exceed $2 billion," the department said.

Among the problems identified in the Advanced Nuclear proposal were the lack of any identified commercial purchasers for medical or research isotopes, and the possibility that Energy Department would have to assume the costs associated with fuel disposal at the reactor.

In September, Heart of America Northwest, a Seattle-based Hanford watchdog group, notified the Department of Energy that it was planning a lawsuit with others to try to halt the restart of the reactor.

"Families across Washington and Oregon can rest easier tonight knowing that citizens were able to prevent adding more wastes and risks of nuclear catastrophe to the threats Hanford poses to our region and the Columbia River," said Gerald Pollet, Heart of America Northwest executive director.

Shutting down the reactor for good could take as long as five years and cost as much as $300 million. It currently costs between $30 million and $40 million a year to maintain it.

Hanford is the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site, a 560-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington, where plutonium was made for four decades for nuclear weapons.