3

Themes of the Comments Received During the Comment Period

For this final phase of the study, the committee discusses here the ground rules for this report. First, the committee has considered all comments received during the comment period from August 15, 2019, to November 20, 2019. The methods used to receive comments are noted in Chapter 1; Appendix E summarizes the comments. Second, the committee decided to revise Review #3 only where a correction is needed or where there is an objective error or an omission. (For completeness and as an aid to readers, Appendix A reproduces the summary and main body of Review #3, including all findings and recommendations, as well as the committee’s review of the final draft report and the committee’s advice for decision-makers. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the committee made two revisions to Recommendations 1-1 and 2-1; otherwise the findings and recommendations are unchanged.) Third, this final review acknowledges significant new information, which became available only after the committee’s Review #3 and which the committee considered in deciding whether to change or modify any of its findings and recommendations from Review #3. Fourth, the committee did not respond in a one-to-one manner to each comment received. Instead, the committee has identified several concepts and themes among these comments and has responded with views on selected groupings or themes of comments. In this chapter, the committee selects themes that are within the scope of the Statement of Task (see Appendix D) and the issues addressed by Review #3 (see Appendix A) and the Federally Funded Research and Development Center’s (FFRDC’s) report (see Appendix B). Fifth, when the committee responds in Chapter 4 to themes, it focuses on themes specific to Review #3. The committee acknowledges there are comments clearly outside the scope of study, that is, beyond supplemental treatment of low-activity waste LAW.

Appendix E lists and summarizes the comments received during the comment period. More than 60 comments were received. Of these, at least 45 were clearly from individual members of the public; there were also 7 anonymous commenters, so the committee is not able to determine whether they are individuals or represent specific entities such as nongovernmental organizations or even governmental agencies. Four nongovernmental organizations, the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), Hanford Challenge, Hanford Communities, and Tri-City Development Council, were identified in their submitted comments. Two tribal nations, the Wanapum and the Yakama, provided comments. Two state regulatory agencies, Washington State Department of Ecology (Department of Ecology) and Oregon Department of Energy, submitted comments. Two advisory boards, Hanford Advisory Board and Oregon Hanford Cleanup Board, provided comments. This chapter provides the themes of those comments that are relevant for the scope of this study and the committee’s task for this review. In the next chapter, the committee discusses whether and how it responds to these themes under the ground rules described above.

OPPOSITION TO GROUT FOR TREATMENT OF SUPPLEMENTAL LOW-ACTIVITY WASTE AND DISPOSAL AT HANFORD AND CONCERNS ABOUT RETENTION OF LONG-LIVED RADIONUCLIDES IN THE GROUT WASTE FORM

Many individuals (about 25 commenters) express opposition to use of grout for treatment of primary supplemental low-activity waste (SLAW) for disposal at the Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF) at Hanford. (One individual noted that he is sending suggested form letter text provided by Hanford Challenge, which according to its website is “a nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Seattle.”) Hanford

Challenge also clearly expresses opposition to grout in its organization’s submitted comments. These commenters also want to have the long-lived radionuclides, in particular, iodine-129 and technetium-99, removed from the SLAW waste form, whether grouted or not. Many commenters express concern that grout would not adequately contain long-lived radionuclides due to their understanding that grout, as a concrete waste form, would degrade relatively quickly. Several commenters raise concern about the relative proximity of the IDF to groundwater and the Columbia River. Protection of the Columbia River is a major theme in many comments.

CONCERNS ABOUT CLIMATIC CHANGE, MAJOR FLOODING, AND SEISMIC ACTIVITY IN THE HANFORD REGION

Considering climatic changes and geological changes, some commenters (a couple of individuals, Hanford Challenge, and the Yakama Nation) caution that the Hanford region is prone to major flooding and that they believe that the scenarios considered for disposal at the IDF do not adequately consider this potential devastating event. Major flooding could occur due to increased rainfall from climate changes and glacial lakes’ melting. Related concerns are dam failures and overflows of the Columbia River. Some have also mentioned that long-term seismic activity needs to be considered. (The committee notes that the recently released performance assessment [PA] does consider this suite of catastrophic scenarios for vitrified waste at the IDF.)

TRIBAL MEMBERS CALL FOR CARE OF THE LAND FOR ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS

During the October 31, 2019, public meeting, representatives from the Yakama Nation and the Wanapum tribe spoke of the responsibility to take care of this land for their children and grandchildren, pointing out that cultural uses of this land have “existed from time immemorial.” To meet this responsibility, they are opposed to leaving any waste on the Hanford site. In particular, the written comments from the Yakama Nation specifically cite the adverse impact on their rights under the Treaty of 1855, under which they ceded more than 15 million acres to the United States but reserved their rights to access “accustomed places,” (see Appendix E, p. 104) especially for gathering foods and medicines and for fishing along the Columbia River. Keeping waste on Hanford land in perpetuity would restrict their ability to exercise these rights for the foreseeable future. Thus, they point to the social cost to the Yakama Nation and members of other regional tribes of leaving any waste on the land, even if treated and immobilized.

INTEREST IN USE OF WASTE CONTROL SPECIALISTS FOR DISPOSAL OF NON-VITRIFIED WASTE FORMS

Some commenters (a few individual commenters, Hanford Communities, and the Department of Ecology) are interested in the option to send SLAW waste forms to the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) near Andrews, Texas. Several people are open and willing to have grout used for treating the SLAW as long as it is disposed in WCS. No one expressed opposition to use of WCS although one resident of Texas asks that the decision take into consideration what is acceptable to those living outside of Washington State. In its submitted comments, the Department of Ecology expresses cautious optimism about the potential for use of WCS.

In addition to the WCS alternative disposal site, the FFRDC mentioned the possibility of disposal in the EnergySolutions facility near Clive, Utah, as a possible waste disposal site, in particular, for Class A waste. The committee has previously endorsed the value of considering disposal sites other than Hanford because they may create upstream opportunities for a speedier, less costly clean-up. Any such consideration would have to include any other plausible sites, for example, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-owned Nevada National Security Site, which might be appropriate for disposal of SLAW. As mentioned later in this chapter, CRESP in its submitted comments also mentions the potential use of the Nevada National Security Site.

STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY AND MONITORING IN PERPETUITY OF THE INTEGRATED DISPOSAL FACILITY

Paul Flaherty of CHC Consulting, LLC, cautions that “the predicted degradation on the structural integrity of the landfill [IDF] will ultimately lead to adverse groundwater impacts” and “modeling variables should also consider daily operational activities during the active life of” the IDF “prior to capping of the landfill.” He recommends considering the impacts of weather events on the structural integrity. Moreover, he believes that the federal government should “provide post-closure integrity assurance into perpetuity” (see Appendix E, p. 101).

Hanford Challenge in its written comments casts doubt on the ability to put in place such indefinite monitoring and links this concern to its opposition to disposing of long-lived radionuclides, in particular, iodine-129 and technetium-99, in the IDF. Hanford Challenge notes, “Future use scenarios assume continuous institutional controls over the entire life of the project, including unrealistic restrictions on land uses” (see Appendix E, p. 101).

CONCEPT OF “AS GOOD AS GLASS”

Concerning the concept of “as good as glass,” the Department of Ecology in its submitted comments agrees “that the term [‘as good as glass’] needs to be objectively defined” (see Appendix E, p. 103). The Department of Ecology stated that a detailed approach to this definition was developed in the 2003 timeframe (see Appendix E, p. 103)

In its submitted comments, members of CRESP, which is a multi-university consortium funded by DOE through a cooperative agreement, highlight that Review #3 “begins with the premise that there is a ‘perceived agreement’ that the final waste form for tank SLAW will be vitrification or another final waste form that is ‘as good as glass’” (see Appendix E, p. 107). They then point out that “DOE has not entered into any such agreement, and urge that this error in [Review #3] be corrected” and “should make clear that the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement (FFA), which is the legally binding agreement … [and] contains no such agreement.” The CRESP members also suggest “that the focus should not be on any specific waste form (e.g., glass versus others) but instead on defining the necessary technical performance requirements of any waste form that would be used for low-level waste burial in the IDF” (see Appendix E, p. 107). They underscore their view that there is noncompliance with the Federal Facility Compliance Act (FFCA) at the IDF such that the FFCA provides that requirements to federal facilities apply “in the same manner, and to the same extent” as requirements applicable to private parties and to “impose on Hanford a requirement that LAW be vitrified or the equivalent, when no such requirement is imposed on private LAW disposal sites, could constitute a violation of the parity requirement of FFCA” (see Appendix E, p. 107). In addition to the IDF and WCS, they recommend consideration of the Nevada National Security Site as a potential disposal site for Hanford SLAW.

ADVANCED GLASS WASTE FORMS TO REDUCE OR ELIMINATE SLAW TREATMENT

During the public meeting of October 31, 2019, and in written comments, research and development of advanced glass waste forms were discussed. In particular, Albert Kruger, a glass scientist at DOE, described his research on advanced glass waste forms and indicated that such glass formulations might result in avoiding the necessity for a SLAW treatment facility or lessening such necessity if the waste loading in

the LAW vitrification system could be increased sufficiently.¹ In a submitted comment after his presentation, an anonymous commenter stated that the presentation “provided the perspective that better glass formulations have the ‘potential to realize nearly the entire soda inventory in the WTP LAW Facility and within an acceptable mission duration.’” This commenter then stated that

CONSIDERATION OF ADDITIONAL TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES

Several commenters (eight individuals, two anonymous submissions, and the Yakama Nation) raise concern that the FFRDC was too limited in its analysis of the treatment approaches it considered for its final draft report. As mentioned previously, these three approaches are vitrification using Joule-heated melters, grout, and fluidized bed steam reforming. One commenter provides extensive comments about the capability of GeoMelt’s bulk vitrification technology and asks that this method be re-considered for treating SLAW at Hanford. Another commenter believes that the FFRDC may not have fully addressed the congressional mandate in Sec. 3134 (see Appendix C) because of the requirement to consider “other alternative approaches identified by the U.S. Department of Energy for immobilizing the low‐activity waste” (see Appendix E, p. 101). (The committee notes that the FFRDC in its final draft report clearly stated that earlier in the study it had considered 22 variants but then narrowed down to the main three approaches with two disposal sites.) Additionally, a commenter suggests that the Department of Ecology should convene a meeting that would solicit new ideas and expresses his view that DOE needs to “think outside the box” and consider technologies such as the syn-rock technology that was applied at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (see Appendix E, p. 100).

COSTS AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS

Several commenters (four individual commenters, an anonymous submission, Hanford Challenge, and the Yakama Nation) express their concern that cost savings has become the dominant consideration in selecting treatment approaches. Some of them mention that there is a long history of driving toward “faster, cheaper” approaches that then result in spiraling upward costs and billions of dollars spent with little or no treatment performed. In addition, they state that the main consideration needs to be on long-term protection of human health and the environment and not on “short-sighted” cost considerations. Three other individual commenters have presented a different view that Hanford is unlikely to receive more than the approximately $2 billion per year that it is currently allocated. While the total budget for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) has been upward of about $7 billion per year, DOE-EM has to balance among several sites across its clean-up complex. Some commenters are concerned that complex technical processes would continue to result in cost escalation. For example, an anonymous commenter asks for consideration of the “exponential savings that are possible by not having a technically complex process and by not having a high temperature off-gas process” (see Appendix E, p. 100).

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¹ See http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/nrsb/miscellaneous/hanford7/kruger.pdf.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS DIRECTED TO THE COMMITTEE’S REVIEW #3

The Yakama Nation requests that the committee “should include a recommendation for evaluation of impacts to Tribal people and resources in Recommendations 2-1 and 3-1” of Review #3 and suggests that “the committee add Tribal, State, and Other Entities opposition as a bullet point to Recommendation 2-1 (d)” (see Appendix E, p. 104).

The CRESP members support the committee’s point in Review #3 “that having start/stop capability may be particularly important because … the receipt rate [of the SLAW] is projected to be highly variable.” They believe that it would be incomplete for the committee “not to include analysis of options for SLAW disposition using the current HLW definition adopted by the Department” (see Appendix E, p. 107) [in the Federal Register notice in June 2019] [emphasis in the submitted comment], but they note that this definition has yet to be implemented at Hanford.

In addition, the CRESP members believe that Review #3

Furthermore, they point out the need for a more accurate inventory of RCRA tank wastes and that the current operating assumption is that all of the tanks contain all of the hazardous materials under RCRA, thus substantially increasing the costs for clean-up and the need to understand the impact of RCRA tank closure requirements on SLAW volume.