Hanford budget meeting failed to inform public

Paige Knight, Hanford Watch, July 8

The Hanford "Budget" meeting that was put on by the Hanford Office of River Protection (ORP) last Thursday evening left much to be desired--very little budget information, no talk of priorities for the elusive cleanup dollars that are still being batted back and forth over the ping-pong table of congress. The timing for this meeting was poor so only four new public members showed up with about eight of us regular attendees. Most of us advised the DOE officials who made the decision to hold this meeting that it was poorly timed. If this kind of meeting is the new approach of the agencies to public participation, it has already run aground.

Without the work that the public interest groups do to educate and turn people out to meetings about Hanford cleanup, the agencies will fail at the public involvement and communication obligations that they have under the Tri-Party Agreement for the cleanup of Hanford. It is our and our constituents that give the continued public support that helps keep Hanford in the minds and pocketbooks of Congress.

One of the new public participants at the June 29th meeting was angered when Roy Schepens offered her hope. I would like to comment on that.

According to Derrick Jenson's article, "Beyond Hope," in the May/June issue of ORION Magazine, "Hope is nothing more than a secular way of keeping us [the public] in line." I have given his thoughts some deep consideration since so many of us who are engaged in this battle for cleanup with the Department of Energy are often dredging up hope that things will get better. Again, according to Jenson, "Hope leads us away from the present, away from who and what we are right now and toward some imaginary state." Rather than spinning our wheels hoping, we need to get on with the "doing" of whatever it takes to change things. Hoping is far different than simply doing the work.

I have been asked over my many years of involvement in Hanford cleanup issues if I feel I am affecting any change. I know that I am, but it is the continual effort to expose the public to the problems and the "truth" that keep me going. I am always trying to figure out who to trust. Ultimately I must trust myself and my instincts and not rely on someone else to solve things.

We each do our pieces of work and together we find different ways of accomplishing something toward the goal (cleanup and the changing of the government/contractor culture), and we are each doing what we love. I feel that I must love what I am doing in order to create change. I am in love with the land upon which we live, I love the people I am interconnected with in this struggle toward cleanup. I have grown to love the Hanford region, the Tri-Cities, and the people I have met and worked with there.

It is all part of the work, the effort to preserve this part of the earth for future generations. When we give up hope and replace it with action, the exploiter/victim relationship of outer authority versus inner authority is broken. "When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear...you instead begin to protect the people, things, and places you love, you become very dangerous indeed to those in power, " according to Jenson's way of thinking.

Returning then to the realities of progress or lack thereof, we saw at this meeting the vague ORP budget numbers proposed for the 2008 fiscal year with talk from Roy Schepens about the delays and setbacks of the Waste Treatment Facility.We're eight to ten years behind the 2011 deadline to begin hot start of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) and at double the cost. Construction of the plant is 30 percent complete and the design is 70 percent complete, and there are a slew of problems with the pre-treatment facility which is needed to separate the high level waste from the low activity waste. Pretreatment is essential as a precursor for operation of both the high level and low activity vitrification facility. And yet, according to some budget figures, if I read them right, the Congressional Committee recommends allocating additional funds amongst the subprojects that are not subject to the seismic recalculations, and less for pretre atment and vitrification, which are still subject to technical uncertainties.

We need $690 million just to keep going on the WTP for 2007 even though the current figures eliminate $90 million. According to John Eschenberg, the WTP project management, the $690 million amount of money can be spent efficiently and wisely. In 2008 $800 million is needed , then $850 in 2009, and $850 in 2010. This will possibly get us to hot start by mid 2017. More money in the next few years that is predictable and stable will save money in the long run and insure a working vitrification plant. John says he is working with his teams to restore confidence and credibility. They are following the suggestions from the "Best and the Brightest" team of experts in many fields that are relevant to the building and working of the WTP.

The Army Corp of Engineers will be delivering their validation of Bechtel's Estimate at Completion in August which could tell us a lot about where we are going. Bechtel's estimate at completion (EAC), however, leaves a lot to be desired. It does not address the problems sufficiently, to say the least. The public and possibly Congress and headquarters DOE are not being given the full scoop, a realistic picture.

We the public need to pay attention to the rhetoric and the action and the money surrounding this vital project and call things as we see them. We can't afford to let hope blind us to the current realities. We need to call on our Congressional Representatives and Senators to be informed and keep the public interests in the forefront of their commitments to us.