Cleaning up Hanford is ‘urgent,’ says energy secretary nominee

By Annette Cary / Tri-City Herald

Cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation is “urgent,” said the Biden administration’s pick for energy secretary at her Senate confirmation hearing this week.

And she committed to requesting larger cleanup budgets than those of the Trump administration.

Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, was questioned about the Hanford nuclear reservation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., at Wednesday’s hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Among her priorities will be environmental cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation and other nuclear weapons production sites and supporting the “amazing scientific work” being done at the Department of Energy’s 17 national laboratories, including on climate change and emissions reduction, she said in her opening remarks.

The nation’s 17 national labs include Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

She will be looking to deploy research to create jobs in the nation, she said.

“I believe that I was nominated by the president because I am obsessed with creating good-paying jobs in America,” she said.

She was the governor of Michigan when the recession and auto bankruptcies brought the automotive industry to its knees, driving the unemployment rate in Detroit to 25%.

Hanford is one of the largest environmental cleanup projects in the world and is the government’s second largest obligation after Social Security and health care, Cantwell reminded her at the hearing.

Yet each new administration comes in with ideas to cut corners, Cantwell said.

Hanford spending

U.S. taxpayers are spending about $2.6 billion this fiscal year on cleanup of the 580-square-mile site in Eastern Washington that was used to produce two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program during World War II and the Cold War.

The Trump administration proposed funding at 46% below what the Department of Energy said was needed to comply with legally binding deadlines for environmental cleanup, Cantwell said, with the Washington state Congressional delegation then convincing the House and Senate to increase the proposed amount.

This year, Hanford managers needed $3.4 billion to meet its cleanup deadlines, according to the Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator. DOE asked for $1.9 billion.

Last year, Hanford needed $3.3 billion and DOE asked for $2.1 billion, the state agency said.

“I hope that you can commit to putting forth a budget that helps DOE keep its milestones that are laid out as part of a Tri-Party Agreement,” Cantwell said.

“You have that commitment,” Granholm responded.

Cleanup at Hanford has been done with a “kick the can down the road” mentality, Wyden said.

“The Columbia River, which Hanford adjoins, is our lifeblood,” he said. “And here is the problem. We have spent billions and billions of dollars to try to turn the toxic waste into material that can be stored safely but not a single ounce of waste actually has been treated.”

Construction started at Hanford’s $17 billion vitrification plant in 2002 with plans to be operating in 2011.

But the plant is not yet ready to treat any of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste held in underground tanks. Many of the tanks are prone to leaking and it least one is currently leaking.

The only tank waste treated so far is three gallons turned into a concrete-like grout form in the initial phase of a pilot project, with the rest of the project currently paused as DOE and state regulators hold discussions on tank waste treatment.

Hanford plan needed

“We need to have a concrete game plan to complete this decades-long effort and actually deal with the safety that people in Oregon and Washington, particularly, deserve,” Wyden said.

Proposals have ranged from the test grouting project to building new tanks, he said.

Hanford cleanup is a complex project and steps need to be taken every year to address waste issues, Granholm responded.

She acknowledged that every new energy secretary says Hanford cleanup will be a priority at their confirmation hearing.

And there has been progress, she said. She had met with Cantwell a day earlier to discuss Hanford.

Some “low-hanging fruit” has been addressed, she said, evidently referring to work to clean out and demolish contaminated buildings; to dig up waste burial sites to and rebury radioactive and hazardous chemical waste in modern, lined landfills; and to decontaminate groundwater.

Cantwell said that there has been progress on getting the Hanford vitrification plant ready to start treating some of the least radioactive waste in underground tanks. DOE expects to begin operating part of the plant by the end of 2023.

“I hope that (date) is something that we can meet,” Cantwell said. “And I hope that you will come to the Tri-Cities as soon as possible to see this facility.”

“I’d very much like to do that,” Granholm responded.

PNNL facility

Cantwell also brought up the Grid Storage Launchpad to be built at PNNL, saying it is important to commercialize electric storage at the grid scale at a tenth of the cost of conventional batteries.

“Very excited about it,” Granholm responded.

The new $75 million national grid energy storage research and development facility at the PNNL campus in Richland should be operating by the end of next year or early 2023, pending additional funding.

The project will support accelerated development of grid energy storage technology, modernizing the power grid and unlocking its economic potential.

Granholm background

Granholm, 61, served as governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011 and for four years before that she was the state’s attorney general. Other experience includes working as a federal prosecutor.

CNN described her as a former contributor to the network.

The University of California Berkeley School of Law lists her as a “distinguished professor.”

She immigrated from Canada as a child. Her parents, both with only high school educations, were seeking economic opportunity, she said at her confirmation hearing.

Her interest in jobs is personal, not only because of the difficulties of Detroit, but because her father was born into dire poverty. His father killed himself during the Great Depression when he could not find work to support his family, she said at the confirmation hearing.

“I bring to this role the sincere belief that we, in America, cannot leave our people behind,” she said.