HANFORD CANYON DISPOSITION INITIATIVE (CDI). A BETTER SOLUTION TO AN EXPENSIVE WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM

Environmental cleanup that is occurring at most U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites is going to be long and expensive. How expensive can really only be answered when cleanup paths forward have been identified, agreed to, and planned. In addition, all the major issues must have been identified. This also means being able to answer the question ''What about the waste?'' Where the waste goes and how it will be handled greatly affects the cost. However, within the mandatory safety and legal envelope, ingenuity can play a huge role in keeping the cost down, getting necessary decisions made earlier in the process, and being protective of the worker, public, and the environment. This paper examines how ingenuity addressed a cleanup action that had no agreed to and identified path forward and resulted in a decision made early that has spurred thinking on what to do with the other similar waste cleanup situations. The Canyon Disposition Initiative (CDI) is an example of finding a better way to address a specific problem, getting agreement on a path forward, opening the options for waste disposal, and reducing the time line for final disposition. For the CDI, the challenge was whether an old inactive building designed for reprocessing and used for multiple missions during its lifetime could be economically and sufficiently characterized to satisfy and bring consensus among groups with vastly different view points. The CDI has actively involved members of various DOE offices (i.e., Waste Management, Science and Technology, Environmental Restoration, and Facility Transition), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), and the three affected Tribal Nations. The ability to partner between these diverse groups has allowed the CDI to go from a concept, to a funded priority project, to a complete review of various alternatives, and finally to a proposed plan to demonstrate the wisdom of finding a better way.