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Friday, February 3, 2006

Hanford cleanup's costs, delays examined

By SHANNON DININNY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

YAKIMA -- A faulty early estimate and an overly optimistic attitude about the uncertainty and risk of building a complex plant at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are major factors in the recent skyrocketing costs and delays, according to a new review.

The U.S. Department of Energy reported results of the review Thursday to members of Congress and Washington state officials.

The Energy Department manages cleanup at the contaminated Hanford site, created in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Cleanup costs are expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion and the work to continue until 2035.

But the department and its contractor have been harshly criticized for their roles in building the vitrification plant, which is being designed to treat highly radioactive waste left from decades of plutonium production. The plant would convert the waste to glass logs. The project is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman already has taken steps to correct many of the issues identified in the report, spokesman Mike Waldron said from Washington, D.C.

"This report certainly takes a hard look at where we have been, but Secretary Bodman has taken steps to set a realistic and achievable direction for the future of the plant," Waldron said.

The report offered a detailed look at how the plant's cost has risen. In 2000, when the contract was awarded to Bechtel National, the projected cost was $4.3 billion. By 2004, the estimate had risen to $5.8 billion.

The Energy Department pushed the estimate to more than $8 billion in March 2005, after a review concluded it had underestimated the effect a severe earthquake might have on the plant. That review, coupled with the rising price of steel and other problems, forced the agency to slow construction significantly last fall.

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