U.S. Water News Online
RICHLAND, Wash. -- The cost to build a waste treatment plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation in south-central Washington could top $10 billion, according to a new report.
In addition, the plant wouldn't be ready to begin treating toxic and radioactive waste until 2017, six years after the legal deadline.
The cost and schedule estimate were contained in a 44,000-page report prepared by Bechtel National, the contractor hired to build the plant. The U.S. Department of Energy, which manages cleanup at the highly contaminated site, presented the report to Washington congressional and state leaders.
The so-called vitrification plant has long been considered the cornerstone of Hanford cleanup. The plant is being designed to convert millions of gallons of radioactive waste into a stable glass form for permanent disposal in a nuclear waste repository.
The waste is being stored in underground tanks, some of which have leaked into the aquifer, threatening the Columbia River less than 10 miles away and making cleanup a priority.
But the plant is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Bechtel spent months completing the latest cost estimate and schedule after it became apparent last year that the official estimate of $5.8 billion was too low.
The new estimate puts the cost at almost $8.8 billion. However, the estimate does not include an undetermined fee for Bechtel or an allowance for uncertainties in the project that likely would be the responsibility of the Energy Department.
Bechtel estimated those risks at nearly $1.8 billion, which would bring the cost without the contractor fee to $10.5 billion.
The Army Corps of Engineers is in the process of reviewing the estimate. The corps review will not be ready before summer, and the Energy Department cannot confirm any other estimates until that review is completed, department spokesman Mike Waldron said.
In addition, Bechtel already is working to revise the estimate due to recent changes. They include a reduction in the budget for the plant in 2006, from $626 million when Bechtel began the review last year to $526 million.
A 2004 report showed that the Energy Department had underestimated the impact a severe earthquake might have on the plant. That report -- coupled with the rising costs for labor and materials and technological problems for the one-of-a-kind plant -- prompted the federal government to halt construction on major portions of the plant last fall.
The latest estimate adds $700 million to $900 million to the overall cost to meet new earthquake design standards.
Under the Tri-Party Agreement, the cleanup pact signed by the state, Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency, the plant is to be operating by 2011. Under the latest estimate, the plant would be operating in March 2017.
Jay Manning, director of the state Department of Ecology, said federal officials focused on the latest cost estimate -- rather than the schedule -- when briefing the state on the situation.
"The numbers we're seeing are alarming and the impact to the schedule is my primary concern at the moment," Manning said.
In its 2007 budget request, the Bush administration restored funding for the plant to 2005 levels at $690 million.
The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup costs expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion.
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