Hanford's fiscal year 2010 starts today, with a bonus of $87 million more than originally proposed by the Obama administration. The federal government is spending over $2 billion a year on Hanford clean-up. This year, the budget is supplemented by an additional $2 billion in stimulus funding (ARRA). Read the full story here.The additional money is to be targeted towards groundwater clean-up and treating the radioactive sludge leftover from the K basin removal. The vitrification plant is fully funded for the year with $690 million. This year, tank farms have $408 million dedicated toward cleanup, up $320 million from FY2009. That's good news, but doesn't make sense paired with the proposed consent decree, which would delay emptying and treating tank waste by decades.
So, I mean i'm amped that the Administration realizes that attention should be drawn to Hanford, but with all this money - why are there delays to clean-up schedules and milestones? DOE has not been effective with their previous budgets, i can only imagine what chaos will ensue with all of this extra money - let's hope for the best.
ReplyDeleteThis piece interests me because it talks about how much it is costing us to clean up Hanford. We are in a recession and our economy is not the best. It is hard for me to believe that we have all this money to clean up Hanford when thousands of people are loosing their jobs daily. I think it is important for Hanford to get cleaned up as quickly as possible, but it is costing us so much money that we don't have. I am choosing to post this newspaper article because I think it is important for people to know that it is in the process of being cleaned up, but it is costing us so much money that I feel we don't have.
ReplyDeleteagreed! Delays, delays, what's going on and how is the money being spent??
ReplyDelete