Oregon Public Broadcasting

A report to Congress is highly critical of five major federal cleanup projects at the Hanford site. Richland correspondent Anna King explains.

The Government Accountability Office reviewed 10 of the Department of Energy’s largest cleanup projects. Five of them are at the Hanford site in southeast Washington State.

The report singled out Hanford’s aging underground tanks of high-level radioactive waste. The report says a huge factory meant to turn the waste into more stable glass logs is $18 billion over budget and may take 18 years longer to complete than first estimated.

The Government Accountability Office’s Dan Freehan helped write the report.

Dan Freehan: "This is the most difficult stuff in the world. You know? There aren’t other companies out there building Waste Treatment Plants to process 50 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste. They’re sort of making it up."

That said, Freehan thinks that the Energy Department could do better.

For starters the agency needs to set realistic building schedules that are achievable with the amount of money Congress has to give.

The Department of Energy says it basically agrees with the GAO’s report.

A spokesman in Richland said the agency is working on developing better estimates for cleanup schedules and costs.