What the Hell Are They Doing at Hanford?

Would You Believe processing More Plutonium?

by Eric Nelson
The Free Press

In his first speech to the United Nations, President BIll Clinton in September proposed a global ban on the production of weapons-grade plutonium. The ban, however, may not apply to our very own Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where U.S. Department of Energy technocrats are planning to process more weapons-grade plutonium and produce more high-level radioactive waste.

And they want to do it using cleanup funds.

As we all know too well, Hanford is strewn with nine decommissioned weapons reactors, trenches filled with radioactive materials, a radioactive water table and leaky underground waste tanks filled with mysterious "witches' brews" of plutonium and mixed

organic solutions. The tanks could blow at any time. One tank regularly belches flammable hydrogen gas. With a 50-year legacy of accidents and environmental irresponsibility in service to the Arms Race, Hanford is probably the most toxic site in the Western Hemisphere.

In a feat of logic, Hanford managers want to reduce waste by creating more of it, and stash a few plutonium goodies while they're at it. DOE officials at Hanford say they need to stabilize leftover reactive plutonium that poses a danger to workers and the environment at Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP).

Before being placed on "standby" in 1989, the PFP converted plutonium-based solutions into plutonium metals and oxide powders, a primary stage in refining plutonium to use in nuclear bombs. Now, DOE wants another run at refining more weapons-grade plutonium. Beginning in May of 1994, DOE plans to process 300 kilograms - about 660 pounds - of plutonium now contained in liquids, sludges, metals and rags in an 80-week "stabilization run" that will cost at least $250 million. These materials are now sealed in air-tight "gloveboxes" and process tanks at the PFP.

About 800 liters of plutonium solution are in 80 polyethylene bottles that have a design life of one year. The bottles are now 20 years old. Rags saturated with nitric acid pose a fire danger. The materials containing Plutonium241 are decaying into Americium241, which has a much longer half-life and exposes workers to greater doses of gamma rays.

A History of Problems

There is no doubt that the current situation at the Plutonium Finishing Plant is unstable: 40 years of plutonium processing leaves a hell of a mess. Local Hanford watchdog groups, including Heart of America Northwest and the Government Accountability Project, which provides legal representation for Hanford whistleblowers, have long contended that the facility is unsafe.

Internal DOE documents cite instances of accidents, worker contamination and radioactive releases to the environment. DOE managers have even mentioned these incidents to superiors in Washington, D.C. and other federal agencies when arguing that a "stabilization run" will make the PFP safer. A typical example: "A flash fire from accumulated hydrogen gas in a nitrate storage container occurred at PFP in July 1976. The incident resulted in significant operator exposure and room contamination."

But DOE tells the public a different story. DOE's September 1993 edition of Citizen Bulletin claims: "The Plutonium Reclamation Facility (a processing line inside the PFP) has operated safely for many years."

In fact, the 42-year old plant was shut down following a string of safety violations in which workers were contaminated and plant operations violated guidelines intended to prevent "criticality." Criticality is an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. Two Hanford whistleblowers who went public with stories of numerous safety violations at the PFP were subsequently harassed and fired by the Westinghouse Hanford Company, which operates the PFP and other Hanford facilities under a contract with DOE.

"With DOE's history, they just don't know how to safely run the place," said Casey Ruud, a former auditor at the plant. He cited problems at the plant, including faulty or missing leak detectors, leaky gloveboxes, cracks in primary containment walls, poor design and a lack of operating guidelines.

In 1986, for instance, two workers were contaminated with plutonium when they received puncture wounds while replacing glovebox filters. According to Tom Carpenter, an attorney for the Government Accountability Project, the PFP was shut down for safety violations in 1984, 1985 and twice in 1986.

Perhaps the most serious concern is that the PFP could suffer the same type of "Red Oil" explosion that occurred at the Russian Tomsk-7 plant this past April. A recent Los Alamos National Laboratory study revealed that explosions of organic solvents have occurred at Hanford plants and could again when plutonium nitrate solutions containing solvents are heated above 135¡ Celsius. At least two such blasts have occurred at Hanford's 177 waste tanks.

Restarting the facility "needs to be evaluated and they need to truly understand what the risks are," Ruud said. He has testified before Congress about the plant's design and operating deficiencies and now works for the Washington State Department of Ecology (and stresses that his comments are not those of the department). Ruud is suing Westinghouse on racketeering charges stemming from his harassment and firing by the company following his public disclosures.

At a Sept. 21 public hearing in Seattle, DOE official John Hunter said the PFP was shut down in 1989 simply because it ran out of plutonium to process. Hunter, Hanford's assistant manager for waste management, and Westinghouse officials briefly mentioned several alternatives to restarting the plant, but failed to precisely spell out how they are ranked. Despite his professed willingness to listen to criticism (and there was plenty of it), Hunter emphasized, "We're the decision-maker in this."

Environmental Impact Whitewash

Hanford watchdog groups are demanding that DOE conduct a full environmental impact statement that explores alternatives to restarting the plant. Under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), environmental impact statements are required when a governmental action may result in significant impacts. Although subject to legal interpretation, closed DOE plants must comply

with NEPA guidelines when they are restarted and when their missions change from weapons production to "waste management."

DOE officials are preparing what's called an "environmental assessment" of the PFP restart, but have not announced any plans for a more thorough environmental impact statement.

Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America, says the environmental assessment doesn't provide enough information about how the potential for exposure would increase by cranking up the PFP. Plus, Pollet said, "DOE has run a multi-year course of avoiding state and federal environmental laws." He says DOE will be sued if it proceeds without a full environmental review.

DOE documents given to Pollet's group by U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary show that former Secretary James Watkins was advised that plans to restart closed Hanford facilities could violate NEPA guidelines.

However, Watkins followed a recommendation to restart the PFP without an environmental impact statement required by NEPA. This recommendation carried a warning that, "In the absence of a demonstrated need for plutonium from PFP, DOE could face a charge that NEPA requires an examination of reasonable alternatives prior to restart."

Preliminary studies show significant environmental impacts of restarting the PFP:

The Washington state Department of Ecology estimates that an 80-week run will generate 300,000 gallons of high-level waste requiring storage in double-shelled tanks.
About 72,000 gallons per day of process water, which may or may not become contaminated, will go into "cribs," or open trenches, that direct the water into Hanford's already contaminated and rising groundwater table. (Studies show that contaminated groundwater has reached the Columbia River.)
Radionuclides and 60 to 80 pounds a day of carbon tetrachloride, a known carcinogen and ozone depleter, would be released into the atmosphere.

More Bombs on the Way?

One reason that DOE dismisses the dangers of operating the PFP and refuses to thoroughly study other alternatives is that it classifies the plutonium scrap at the PFP as an "asset," not a "waste." (But remember, the PFP itself is a "waste management" project.) About 71 percent of the plutonium solutions and 90 percent of the scrap metals to be processed are weapons grade, says a declassified inventory list written last April.

DOE clearly wants the plutonium preserved for future use.

An October 1990 memo signed by John Hunter, then Hanford's assistant manager for operations and research, calls for long-term storage of a "Special Nuclear Materials" inventory at the PFP and "maintaining as much as reasonably achievable, weapons-grade isotopics for plutonium stabilized."

DOE could store the plutonium in new underground storage tanks, but that would require diluting it in 6 million gallons of solution. It's pretty hard to cook that back down to a bomb. Another option is vitrification, where plutonium is mixed with special sand to create a glass that is stored in steel canisters. Vitrification is new and uncertain technology, but DOE's main objection to the process is that it inhibits future recovery of the plutonium. In response to Hunter's memo, a Westinghouse engineer reported back that he did not review vitrification options in a study, "due to uncertainty regarding future demand for purified plutonium."

When questioned about this at the Seattle public hearing, Hunter said, "Theoretically, it (the plutonium oxide created by the planned PFP "stabilization run") could be used as fuel and burned up. Or if the world goes really crazy - and that's something I don't dare contemplate - this material could be cleaned up and used for weapons."

Heart of America's Pollet notes that in 1994, Hanford will receive $1.5 billion dollars from a DOE budget line called the Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Account. "In the fine print, Congress has no idea that cleanup includes running a plant to produce more waste and more weapons grade materials," Pollet said.

"Our concern is cleaning up the site," said DOE spokeswoman Lois Thiede. DOE will study alternatives in its environmental assessment. "We got out information and heard more concerns from the public," she said of September's public hearings.

The PFP "stabilization run" may be the best way to quickly deal with the reactive plutonium using available technology. But given its past history, don't take DOE at its word. DOE continues to limit its options by using criteria that create more weapons and more waste.

In its public-outreach materials, DOE says it wants to hear your opinion on the PFP. Just this once, take them at their word. Write John Hunter at Mail Stop R3-81, USDOE, PO Box 550, Richland, WA 99352. Declassified memos say his number is (509) 376-7434.

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