The Oregonian
04/04/03
http://www.oregonlive.com/metronorth/oregonian/index.ssf?/ba
se/metro_north_news/1049461366217020.xml

Energy Department fined over Hanford deadline

YAKIMA -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on
Thursday fined the Department of Energy $76,000 for failing
to meet a deadline for removing radioactive sludge at the
bottom of K East Basin at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The sludge comes from corroded spent nuclear fuel stored in
the huge water-filled basin, along with dust, dirt and
sloughed material from the basin walls.

The Energy Department was supposed to begin removing nearly
65 cubic yards of sludge from K East by Dec. 31.

Failure to do so under the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement -- the
legal pact governing cleanup at Hanford -- carries an
initial fine of as much as $5,000 and as much as $10,000 for
each subsequent week, the EPA said.

The EPA knew the Energy Department was running behind on the
sludge removal because of the challenges of the K Basins
cleanup, which involves a lot of first-of-a-kind processes
and equipment, said Keith Klein, the Energy Department's
Hanford manager.

The Energy Department and contractor Fluor Hanford expect to
begin cleaning out the sludge by the end of this month or
early next month.

Next deadline August 2004 The deadline to have the sludge
out of K East and stored at T-Plant, a renovated chemical
reprocessing building, is Aug. 31, 2004.

The sludge will be sucked out of the bottom of the basin
through a series of underwater pipes, hoses, valves, pumps
and strainers and funneled to large vessels with internal
parts to separate water, sludge and gasses. The vessels will
then go to T-Plant for storage.

About 2,100 metric tons of spent fuel were stored in the K
Basins, built in the 1950s to hold the highly radioactive
fuel rods that came out of the N Reactor, which was used to
make plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The
irradiated uranium fuel from the two indoor pools represents
about 80 percent of the nation's remaining inventory of
spent nuclear fuel.

K East Basin has twice leaked radioactive water and sludge
into the soil, threatening the Columbia River -- 400 yards
away.