U.S. Water News Online
YAKIMA, Wash. -- The Energy Department has not made significant progress in treating contaminated groundwater at the Hanford nuclear reservation, a federal audit has concluded.
The department has estimated that 80 square miles of Hanford's groundwater were contaminated at levels exceeding state and federal drinking water standards during decades of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal.
The study released by the Energy Department's inspector general reviewed the effectiveness of the agency's methods for treating the water. Those so-called pump-and-treat systems call for workers to pump contaminated groundwater, run it through filters to remove radioactive contaminants and re-inject the water into the ground.
The pump-and-treat systems have been "largely ineffective," the audit concluded. In addition, it found that plans to install surface barriers to block contaminated groundwater from spreading may be inappropriate until final plans for groundwater at the site have been resolved.
The department has spent more than $85 million over the past eight years and will continue to spend about $8 million annually to operate pump-and-treat systems that are not effectively cleaning the water, the audit said.
More than $230 million are scheduled to be spent on the surface barriers.
In a June 29 response to a draft of the audit, the Energy Department agreed with most of the findings. The recommendations were consistent with current cleanup plans at the site, and the agency plans to begin a study of treatment alternatives this fall, Jessie Roberson said then. Roberson, who was assistant energy secretary for environmental management, has since resigned.
Roberson also said that discussions with stakeholders, such as the state and Indian tribes, are necessary to determine final plans for groundwater at the site.
In May, Washington state officials rejected an Energy Department request to temporarily discontinue a pump-and-treat system that was deemed insufficient in one part of the reservation. Instead, the state argued that federal officials should propose a new course of action in writing before making changes.
The department agreed to continue pumping and treating groundwater in the interim.
The plumes of contamination move very slowly, said Bruce Ford, director of the groundwater remediation project for Fluor Hanford, the contractor handling some Hanford cleanup. Research into alternatives to treating the plumes has been ongoing for years, he said, but contractors will have enough information to make recommendations within the next year.
For 40 years, the 586-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington made plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons, beginning with the top-secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb.
Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Cleanup costs are expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion, with the work to be finished by 2035.
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