DOE Fined $1.14 Million

Mar 28, 01:23 PM

Current Headlines: By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.

Mar. 28--The Environmental Protection Agency has issued its largest fine ever at the Hanford nuclear reservation, a $1.14 million penalty against the Department of Energy for problems at Hanford's Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.

"It is significant, but so are the issues," said Nick Ceto, EPA Hanford project manager.

The fine was issued because of contractor performance problems and also inadequate DOE oversight, he said.

"Continued missteps at one of the country's most complex and difficult cleanup sites cannot -- and will not -- be tolerated," Elin Miller, the EPA regional administrator, said in a statement.

Problems came to light when SM Stoller, the subcontractor operating the low-level radioactive waste landfill in central Hanford, discovered in January that an employee had been recording data for compaction testing when no testing was done.

After contaminated soil and building debris from the cleanup of Hanford is added to the landfill, bulldozers are used to compact it to pre-set standards. This ensures that once the landfill is closed, settling does not occur and damage a cap over the landfill to keep out water.

As DOE, EPA and the contractor on the project, Washington Closure Hanford, took a closer look at operations, more problems were discovered. Some of them appear to stretch back to before August 2005 when Bechtel Hanford and its subcontractor Duratek were in charge of the landfill, according to EPA.

"These failures have raised public concerns about ERDF's integrity as a safe and secure waste management facility and slowed cleanup across the site," EPA wrote in a letter to DOE.

The fine includes $835,000 for failure to correctly perform compaction testing from June 2005 through early January 2007, when one employee falsified testing results. But the penalty also covers what EPA believes is the improper use of equipment to conduct the compaction testing that was done.

Workers should have made readings with a densimeter placed directly on the soil to meet the standards of the American Society for Testing and Materials, according to EPA. Instead, workers were placing a plastic barrier between contaminated soil and the instrument.

"The instrument is very sensitive to total contact with what it is measuring," said Dave Einan, EPA environmental engineer. When EPA officials observed workers doing compaction testing at the site using the plastic barrier, the test results were erratic, Einan said.

The remaining $305,000 was assessed because of problems monitoring and using a system to pump water that was collected and drained from the upper liner of the double-lined landfill. After a storm in May 2006, the pumps quit operating automatically in a portion of the landfill and their failure went unnoticed. They failed to operate until December 2006 and twice the water level exceeded regulations.

Workers failed to perform weekly inspections that would detect the presence of collected water and the improper functioning of the pumping system, EPA said. The water collects from storms, spraying to keep down dust and wet soils placed in the landfill.

DOE assessed penalties for both violations at the maximum rate of $5,000 for the first week and $10,000 for each additional week.

However, EPA has told DOE that the fine may be reduced if it commits to an environmental project that's acceptable to EPA. No specifics on projects were given in a letter to EPA, but they might include work on contaminated ground water or reducing surface water runoff, Ceto said.

DOE has 15 days to dispute the fine, but the law only allows it to contest whether violations occurred, not the amount of the penalty.

DOE could choose to pass on at least part of the penalty to Washington Closure Hanford for payment out of its corporate funds, but part of the fine was specifically for what EPA considers inadequate oversight by DOE of the project.

"We really need accountability for the work to get done," Ceto said. "Ultimately, DOE is accountable."

DOE is taking the incidents at the landfill seriously, said Colleen French, spokeswoman for DOE.

"We must ensure that the quality of the Hanford cleanup work is not overly dependent on the actions of any one individual, and we have worked with our contractor to take immediate corrective action," she said.

From January until two weeks ago, workers were not allowed to add any waste to the landfill without a DOE observer present. That oversight has been reduced as DOE has gained confidence in contractor work at the landfill, French said.

Washington Closure also has taken the issues seriously and "responded decisively with our subcontractor," said Washington Closure in a statement.

The contractor has notified SM Stoller and Duratek of their liability, according to the statement.

"Stoller has not met our expectations and we have reinforced with them exactly what our operational expectations are, including the need to change out management if necessary," the statement said.

Stoller officials could not be reached Tuesday night. Duratek has since been bought by Utah-based EnergySolutions.

DOE and Washington Closure emphasized that problems have not resulted in any release of contamination from the landfill.

EPA found no damage to the liner of the landfill from the pumping problem. It also has found no problems with the integrity of the landfill from compaction problems. However, some of the density measurements have been inconclusive and more testing is planned.

No waste was added to the landfill for several weeks after the compaction testing problem was discovered. Now waste is being added only to a small area where no waste was added previously.

That will not be expanded until DOE submits a work plan and EPA finds it acceptable, Ceto said.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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