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Part 5 of 5 Parts (Please read Part 1, 2, 3 and 4 first)
    The melters are designed for an annual throughput of about one million seven hundred and fifty million to two million gallons of tank waste each year. Each melter has a five-year operating life span. A third melter will be constructed onsite before any treatment of waste begins. The whole low-level treatment facility has an intended life span of forty years. DoE claims that outstanding technical and design issues have been solved and signed off on by the State of Washington.
    The high-level waste processing facility remains in the design stage. It is not clear exactly when this facility will be finished or if it ever will be. There are nine major technical challenges which have been resolved, two of them were dealt with last August. Olds says that “I would be jumping ahead to give you a conclusion.”
    Adding to the uncertainty, DoE proposed new guidelines last June which would reclassify some of the high-level waste as low-level waste. Hanford watchdog groups adamantly oppose this reclassification and the governor of Washington State says that it is “reckless.” Some local groups support the reclassification scheme because it should speed up the cleanup and further Hanford redevelopment. The reclassification proposal was explicitly banned from the spending bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives. DoE officials at Hanford state that they have not officially committed to any changes in classification.
     The U.S. Corp of Engineers performed an analysis of options and budget scenarios that may be necessary in order to reach key consent decree milestones for the high-level waste treatment facility and the pretreatment plant. The analysis reports that there is a low probability that the deadlines can be met under the current funding levels. The DoE has contracted an independent firm which will develop alternatives by late 2019 in order to aid future decisions.
   Tom Carpenter is the executive director of leading site watchdog group Hanford Challenge. He says that no facility at the Vit Plant should be put into operation until there has been a complete and independent inspection that validates and verifies the quality of nuclear treatment in the Vit Plant. He says, “DOE seems to be doing everything in its power to simply walk away from its legal and moral obligations to deal with Hanford’s extraordinary radioactive waste inventories. I seriously doubt the high- level waste facility will ever operate for numerous reasons, and DoE will simply find that the waste is low-level, not high-level, dump concrete on the whole mess and call it good.”
   Carpenter does support the vitrification of waste at Hanford. However, he is concerned about what he says are consistent design flaws, a lack of quality control and a “poor nuclear safety culture” at Hanford. He points out that there have been lawsuits involving whistleblowers as well as reassignment of employee who have raised safety concerns. For the moment, DoE and Hanford are focusing on the ninety percent of Hanford tank waste that is low-level. They are confident that they will be able to treat it successfully in the low-level waste treatment facility. McCain says, “There have been quality issues in the past that slowed things, but those have been addressed. Having legacy issues behind us was a big burden off the project.”
    He goes on to say that in view of the fact that the vitrification project at Hanford will need hundreds of millions of dollars a year to meet the milestones and agreements that are in effect, it will be “critically important for DOE and its regulators to identify ways to reduce the long-term cost and schedule for Hanford cleanup.”