“We all have a role to play in getting the Hanford cleanup story back on track and it is going to have a better ending if the Tri-Party Agencies embrace a more collaborative mentality.”
— Hanford Challenge

What is the Holistic Settlement Agreement?

In April 2024, the landmark Holistic Settlement Agreement was reached between the Tri-Party Agreement agencies who are responsible for cleaning up Hanford. The proposed agreement is out for public comment through September 1, 2024 and is all about tank waste cleanup. The proposed agreement: 

  • changes & updates the plan for Hanford tank waste cleanup and,

  • updates the timeline for tank waste cleanup work. 

Read our formal comments on the agreement here.

Where did the proposed agreement come from?

Back in 2019, Washington State’s Department of Ecology (Ecology) proposed holding negotiations with the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE, Energy) to get tank waste treatment back on track and break the cycle of endlessly extended milestones for emptying tanks and treating tank waste. In the original letter, Ecology said they would take 6-9 months max to complete the negotiations. In the end it took over four years and 100 closed-door negotiation sessions. EPA was also involved as a Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) agency that has to sign off on all TPA changes. Ecology is the lead regulator for Hanford’s tank waste cleanup which is why they initiated the negotiations.

The negotiations resulted in a proposed agreement with three parts that is out for public comment until September 1, 2024. The Tri-Party Agencies will be collecting comments and issuing a formal response to comments on all sections of the agreement except for the Settlement Agreement Terms.

The proposed Holistic Settlement Agreement includes:

  1. Settlement Agreement Terms: This details the terms of the agreement. (pages 1-18 of the pdf)

  2. Consent Decree Changes: This part deals with tank waste cleanup scope that is subject to judicial order stemming from the 2008 lawsuit when Ecology took USDOE to court for missing tank waste cleanup deadlines for decades. The agencies are proposing changes to the Consent Decree, issuing those proposed changes for public comment, and after the public process, the proposed changes need to be submitted to the judge/court for approval. (pages 19-35 of the pdf)

  3. New/Changed Tri-Party Agreement Milestones: This part deals with the work-in-progress scope and timeline for Hanford cleanup. The agencies can agree to change TPA Milestones without going to court. For the Holistic Settlement Agreement, the proposed TPA Milestone changes are new/changed plans and schedule for tank waste cleanup. (pages 36-98 of the pdf)

For more context and history about Hanford’s ever-changing deadlines and the agency agreements that are supposed to keep cleanup on track, check out our When of Hanford Cleanup paper.

Highlights of the Agreement

  • Ban (for now) on Using High-Level Waste Reinterpretation at Hanford: Big win (kind of). We asked and they delivered. USDOE says it won’t use the high-level waste reinterpretation at Hanford, for now. This means USDOE won't wave a pen and say the tank waste isn’t high-level waste, but that could change in the future. (Settlement Agreement Terms: You can tell the agencies what you think about this, but they won't officially respond.)

  • New Tank Space: You asked and they delivered! They are finally committing to building 1 million gallons worth of new tank space for waste storage and staging... in 16 years. Exciting, but let’s build more space and get this done faster, eh? (New/Changed TPA Milestones - You can officially comment on this.)

  • Fast Track to Grout: USDOE will be making a decision about where/how to treat and grout tens of millions of gallons of liquid tank waste by the end of 2024, before they have any results from their 2,000-gallon grout test, which won’t be done until spring 2025 at the earliest. Not a shocker that we think this timing makes no sense. Get test results first, please. (New/Changed TPA Milestones - You can officially comment on this.)

  • Delaying Delays: A big highlight of the agreement is the *ASTERISK*. It shows up in both the Consent Decree Changes and New/Changed TPA Milestones and it basically means the agencies postponed telling us how long certain cleanup work will be delayed. The asterisk tells us the agencies know they aren't going to meet certain deadlines, but kept the date anyway and added a new schedule for changing the date in the future. One set of delays will be negotiated over the next 5 years, mostly related to getting high-level waste treatment up and running (Consent Decree Changes). The other set of delays is contingent on when the high-level waste facility is making glass, probably around 14 years from now (New/Changed TPA Milestones).

What do these proposed changes mean for the future?

So how could these proposed changes to the Tri-Party Agreement Milestones and Consent Decree play out in the future?

We are anticipating a few big public processes in the near future that are triggered when the Holistic Settlement Agreement is finalized. We’ll be watching and waiting for the following:

Grouting Tank Waste:

If the agencies want to mobilize waste from 22 tanks in 200 West Area by adding liquid, treating that waste to remove cesium, and grouting that waste for offsite disposal they have to do a few things first. Read more about Hanford Challenge’s concerns regarding grout here.

  • Get and Use Grout Test Results to Make an Informed Decision: Optional, but we think they should DEFINITELY do this one. We think it is pretty darn important to know if it works to grout Hanford’s tank waste, how much grout is needed to get the mixture to harden, what grout formula tweaking was required for each batch of waste, what the implications are for transportation based on that information, find out what it was like to work with different offsite commercial facilities, and update financial calculations based on this information - BEFORE they make a decision about how/where they are planning to treat and grout tens of millions of gallons of liquid tank waste.

  • Get NEPA Coverage to Assess Environmental Risks: This could be a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement or an Environmental Assessment. The first is more rigorous than the second, but both have to show the proposal’s environmental impacts. In the public meetings, we learned that USDOE has to show Ecology what it is using for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) coverage to show that all of the proposal’s environmental impacts have been assessed. It seems like transportation impacts are the least covered with existing NEPA documentation on tank waste treatment. Hanford Challenge and other groups would like more information about the NEPA coverage USDOE is planning to use so that the public is fully informed to comment on issues that have far-reaching implications. As we understand it, USDOE is in the process of figuring out what NEPA coverage it does not have and then would start the process of drafting the documents it needs to show how all environmental impacts of the proposal have been considered. We want more transparency, stakeholder involvement, and a public comment period as a part of this process.

  • Get and Update RCRA* Permits: You can think of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Permits as rule-books for how this grouting plan would work. If there is new cleanup work scope at Hanford, which this would be, then USDOE would ask its contractors to draft a permit application for the work that would be added to the permit, the State reviews the permit application, and the public gets to comment on the draft permit application (because it would be a significant permit). Getting RCRA permits updated takes a long time. There can be multiple rounds of reviews and public comment periods before the permit is approved. *RCRA is one of the heavy-hitting environmental laws that USDOE has to follow and is regulated by Ecology. Ecology gets its authority to regulate Hanford through RCRA from the Environmental Protection Agency. Ecology uses RCRA permits to move Hanford waste sites through its “cradle-to-grave” process, meaning any site that is in the permit gets updated from the moment it is identified as a cleanup site (cradle), through that site’s cleanup, until the cleanup of that site is finished (grave). Each time the permit changes it is called a permit modification and for major changes/modifications the public is able to comment on the change.

  • TPA Change Package with Updates to the Tri-Party Agreement: Based on the language in the new milestones M-062-64 through 66 (Attachment M, p.80-85 of the pdf), we anticipate that when USDOE makes its decision about where/how to grout liquid waste from 22 tanks, the TPA agencies will need to update the Tri-Party Agreement and those changes would go out for public comment through a TPA Change Package.

  • Apply for a Treatability Variance from EPA: When we spoke with EPA’s RCRA team, we learned that USDOE has to apply for a Treatability Variance for the waste in each specific tank it plans to treat with grout instead of glass (vitrification) and provide documentation to show that it meets the criteria to be treated in this different way in order to proceed with the grouting plan. It is unclear if USDOE would submit a Treatability Variance for each tank or for all of the tanks once they are identified. We do know the volume is in the tens of millions of gallons and that the tank waste chemistry can vary significantly between each tank. So this is a process we will be watching closely. There will be a public comment period on the draft Treatability Variance.

  • Deal with Transportation Issues: Shipping tens of millions of gallons of tank waste is a big deal. USDOE should be informing communities along potential transportation routes and getting input from those communities about different ways this grouting plan could shake down. Ideally this would be done BEFORE they make a decision about the how and where of this proposal. Assessing transportation risks would be part of the required NEPA analysis. By some estimates, this could be a train of waste each day going through a community - this is no small thing.

  • Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) Determination Process: In order to treat the tank waste in the 22 tanks as other than high-level waste, USDOE has to put out a Draft WIR Evaluation showing that the treatment plan to remove cesium from the liquid waste is enough to reclassify the waste from high-level waste to low-activity waste. The Draft WIR Evaluation would go out for public comment and then USDOE would make a Final WIR Determination. We are not sure if USDOE would do more than one WIR for the 22 tanks. See picture for the other WIR criteria. The slide is from a 2018 presentation given by Oregon Dept. of Energy on the Draft C-Farm WIR.

  • Business Case Analysis: There are different proposed options for where USDOE is considering grouting the tens of millions of gallons of waste from the 22 tanks in 200 West Area. The Business Case Analysis is an internal (won’t be shared publicly) cost-benefit analysis comparing these options which include: 

    • an onsite grouting facility at Hanford (which USDOE would need to build),

    • the local commercially owned Perma-Fix Northwest facility in Richland, or 

    • offsite commercial grouting facilities.

Updating the Expected Date that the High-Level Waste Facility will be working:

A big feature of the proposed changes is delaying delays. It does make sense that updating the dates once more information is available is easier and may result in more reliable start dates, but it also sounds a lot like kicking the bad-news down the road.

  • Negotiations for HLW Facility Deadlines that Conclude June 30, 2029: The Consent Decree’s proposed changes, show that Ecology and Energy will be negotiating delays for milestones related to the High-Level Waste (HLW) Facility which has been plagued by technical issues with its design. This means the date for when the HLW facility is treating high-level waste will be changed from 2033 to a date in the future. Indications are that this date will move to at least 2036. We’re guessing farther out based on how long this facility has been basically rusting in the desert, but all of this is to say, we have to wait 5 years before we hear what the agencies are proposing for the new “hot commissioning” deadline. Hot commissioning means that the facility is actually treating high-level tank waste rather than testing treatment on simulated tank waste.

  • Public Comment Period on the Proposed Changes at some point after June 30, 2029: Once the agencies have the new proposed dates for HLW hot commissioning they will go out for public comment in a similar process to the Holistic Settlement Agreement. Hopefully in five years when we get to comment on these proposed changes, there will be increased transparency, accessibility, and a robust public involvement plan that was informed by input from involved and invested groups, agencies, and Tribes from around the region.

SHIFTING TO A Direct-Feed High-Level Waste Plan:

A big change in the proposed Holistic Settlement Agreement is moving to a direct-feed approach for the High-Level Waste Treatment Facility. They would no longer use the pretreatment facility (also plagued by design and technical issues and hasn’t been finished) and instead build a system that replicates two functions the original pretreatment facility was meant to provide—space for staging waste feed and capability to manage effluent from the treatment process.

Updating the Dates for Major Tank Waste Treatment Milestones:

This is all of the DOUBLE ASTERISK (**) work in the New/Changed Tri-Party Agreement Milestones that the agencies plan on dealing with later. The agencies know the deadlines for double asterisked work will be missed, but have chosen to wait 14 years-ish to negotiate the new dates. Similar to the reasoning discussed above, it makes sense to make deadlines that are informed by other tank waste treatment work happening successfully, but once again it sounds an awful lot like kicking major bad-news delays far down the road. The steps to get to these new dates involves:

  • Negotiating new milestones for the following work within 18 months of the hot-start commissioning of the High-Level Waste Facility. Best guess right now is around 2038:

    • Completing closure of all Single-Shell Tank Farms;

    • Completing tank waste retrievals as expeditiously as possible;

    • Completing tank waste treatment as expeditiously as possible;

    • Adding new interim milestones that map out closure of remaining Single-Shell Tank waste management areas;

    • Selecting the treatment plan for the portion of tank waste that the existing Waste Treatment Plant is unable to treat (Supplemental Treatment) and adding milestones that detail this work to the Tri-Party Agreement (Agencies must consider a second Vitrification facility as one of the options);

    • Figuring out how future disputes between USDOE and Ecology will be resolved after the Consent Decree expires.

  • Getting Public Review and Comment on the New Proposed Milestones: Once the negotiations are complete, the Tri-Party Agencies would put out their proposed new deadlines for public review and comment. Mark your calendar for around 14 years from now.

Paying for Hanford Cleanup:

A lot of the projects proposed in the Holistic Settlement Agreement are new or changed work scope for Hanford cleanup and will likely require additional funding on top of funding that is already in short supply. We will be watching for the following documents and funding trends that are likely to give us some more information about how funding will impact the tank waste management and treatment plan:

  • Lifecycle Scope, Schedule, and Cost Report: We learned at the public meetings that USDOE will be putting out an updated Lifecycle report in 2025 that includes the work that is proposed in the Settlement Agreement. This report gives high and low range estimates for the total cost of Hanford cleanup, the total timeline for when cleanup will be done, and also shows what funding levels need to be by year to keep cleanup on track.

  • Annual Congressional Funding Levels: Hanford’s funding is set one year at a time. There are three years of funding in play at any one time. The current year, the following year, and the year before that. According to past Lifecycle Scope, Schedule, and Cost Reports we need major increases in funding for Hanford cleanup to prevent major delays and make progress on tank waste treatment. For example, estimates in past Lifecycle Reports show a need for increases in annual funding that go up to $5 billion and as much as $14 billion once the Waste Treatment Plant facilities are all up and running. Right now, cleanup funding has been slightly increasing, but nowhere near those kinds of increases.

  • Robust Oversight of Hanford Spending: Increased funding is necessary as well as well managed spending and oversight. Hanford has a long history of fraud cases that have required groups like us to hold contractors accountable for Hanford cleanup dollars.. The following mechanisms can provide a bit more oversight of spending to make sure our cleanup dollars aren’t wasted:

    • Congressional Oversight: Congressional hearings have made a big difference in the past in stopping wasteful spending on projects like parts of the Waste Treatment Plant that were proceeding despite major technical issues. Thanks to Congressional oversight committees paying attention to whistleblowers some of that wasteful spending was stopped.

    • Government Accountability Office Investigations and Reports: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) “is an independent, non-partisan agency that works for Congress. GAO examines how taxpayer dollars are spent and provides Congress and federal agencies with objective, non-partisan, fact-based information to help the government save money and work more efficiently.” (GAO website)

    • Lawsuits: The False Claims Act provides an avenue to combat fraud. Obviously it would be better if the fraud was prevented in the first place, but it is great to have a mechanism that can stop wasteful and illegal use of taxpayer funds.

Thank You, Whistleblowers!

We want to give a huge shout out to all of the Hanford whistleblowers who have made a difference on tank waste cleanup.

Thank you for being brave and bold enough to say “Enough!” to dangerous profit and schedule focused nonsense, which is a huge reason we are in this endless-delays pickle-of-a-situation, not knowing how or when the tank waste cleanup story will end.

Holisitic Settlement Agreement formal Comments

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