Initiative 297 Seeks to Ban Out-Of-State Hazardous Waste at Hanford
2004-19
In November Washingtonians will vote on Initiative 297, a ballot measure imposing new requirements on the way nuclear waste is handled at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. This Policy Note gives a brief description of the Initiative and summarizes the arguments for and against it.
Initiative 297 would prohibit additional mixed hazardous waste from being brought to Hanford until certain improvements are made to the site. Specifically, the treatment of the waste currently at the site would have to conform to all state and federal environmental standards. The Initiative would require the cessation of placing waste in unlined soil trenches (which the government stopped doing some time ago), the monitoring of ground water and the adoption of guidelines for closing mixed waste tank systems. Mixed waste includes radioactive and other hazardous materials.
Located in southeast Washington, nuclear reactors at Hanford were used for over 40 years. The weapons-grade materials produced there were essential to U.S. victories in World War II and the Cold War. Today, Hanford stores over 53 million gallons of mixed waste in 177 underground tanks; 147 tanks are of unlined, single shell construction with no secondary containment. Sixty-seven tanks are either confirmed to be or suspected of leaking. Currently, Hanford is the site of the world’s largest environmental cleanup project. Overall the site covers some 586 square miles.
The change in mission from nuclear operations to cleanup became complete in 1989, when the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection (EPA) and the state Department of Ecology signed the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, commonly known as the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA). The TPA lays out legally-enforceable milestones for Hanford cleanup over the next several decades.
In 1982 Congress had passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), which requires DOE to dispose of high-level radioactive waste in a deep, geologic repository. In 1999 DOE adopted Order 435.1, the agency’s internal regulatory tool for managing radioactive waste. The order includes a provision, called the incidental waste exemption, that allows DOE to reclassify as “incidental” the sludge and solid waste remaining after most hazardous material had been removed from a tank. This reclassification allows DOE to leave the hard-to-reach incidental waste in the underground storage tanks and not ship it to the geologic repository.
Environmental activists argue the problem with reclassifying tank remains as “incidental waste” is that this waste is at least as radioactive as the material sent to the geologic repository. DOE argues cleaning out the tanks completely is too slow and expensive to be practical and the costs far outweigh any benefits. DOE says it plans to cover the remaining waste with grout to stabilize it and prevent it from leaching into local water tables.
DOE opponents say that could leave more than 35 million gallons of radioactive sludge and salt cake in the ground, and allow DOE to declare the site fully cleaned without removing all the waste. Washington state officials have opposed the change in court and in Congress.
In February 2002, the environmental group Natural Resource Defense council (NRDC) along with states with high-level radioactive waste sites, sued DOE in the Idaho District Court. They claimed DOE violated federal law by issuing Order 435.1 and its incidental waste exemption. The court agreed. The court banned shipment of high-level radioactive waste while the case is in litigation. Most recently, Washington state attorneys asked a federal judge in Spokane to expand the lawsuit to include low-level and mixed low-level radioactive waste, resulting in the halting of all shipments of radioactive waste. DOE responded by agreeing to stop most shipments of nuclear waste to Hanford until November 15th, 2004 or a legal ruling is made, whichever comes first.
Late last year Initiative 297 sponsors collected more than enough signatures (the most ever for an initiative to the legislature) to send the measure to Olympia in January 2004. Because the legislature did not act on it, the proposal was automatically forwarded to the voters on this fall’s general election ballot. The advent of Initiative 297 complicates DOE’s current clean-up plans and puts pressure on the agency to continue the ban of high-level waste shipments beyond November 15th.
Initiative 297 supporters say there is a serious threat of groundwater contamination. “Over a million gallons of...nuclear waste has leaked from Hanford’s tanks and is spreading towards the Columbia River,” says Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest and the sponsor of Initiative 297. “The federal government wants to keep dumping more waste instead of cleaning up.” Supporters also say transport of hazardous waste should be minimized and, as the Initiative provides, citizens should have a say in decisions that involve truckloads of dangerous wastes passing through their communities.
Opponents of Initiative 297, led by the Tri-City Industrial Development Council (TRIDEC), express concern about the “problems it will cause for the Tri-Cities and for Washington state.” The current plan for permanently storing most Hanford hazardous waste is to ship it to other states. “Currently the clean-up process at Hanford is going well,” says Gary Petersen, TRIDEC Hanford Program Assistant, “the Initiative puts at risk what is going on in the clean-up process.”
TRIDEC expressed worry that other states may pass their own laws like Initiative 297 to block waste from being shipped into their state, thus making it difficult or impossible to send Hanford’s waste out of Washington. Initiative opponent Congress-man Doc Hastings, whose district includes Hanford, says, “Initiative 297 directly affects the federal government’s cleanup of Hanford and I believe it would be very harmful to the people of Washington if it should pass.”
TRIDEC also points out that although the Initiative calls for creating a community advisory board, such a board, the Hanford Advisory Board, has existed since 1994 and is doing effective work. If the Initiative passes, opponents say, it will result in the creation of needless advisory boards. Opponents also contend passage of the Initiative 297 would require giving new grants to interest groups, including, they say, the very groups that are sponsoring the Initiative.
TRIDEC is concerned that the Initiative will hinder the ongoing clean-up by endangering federal funds budgeted for Hanford. They say that if the Initiative passes a lengthy court battle would ensue, which would divert scarce funds from current Hanford clean-up efforts. Opponents say that is unlikely, because Congress has already committed funds for Hanford clean up.