Added state clout. And a quid pro quo arrangement. The committee met Wednesday in Richland. The committee expects to make recommendations to the full Hanford Advisory Board early next month. Last month, DOE announced its top choices to receive and bury wastes from many of the agency's 54 sites.
Final decisions are due later.
Hanford and the Nevada Test Site are the two choices to receive mixed wastes, which are low-level radioactive wastes mixed with dangerous chemicals. Hanford, Savannah River, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos are the four possible sites for low-level wastes, which are slightly radioactive clothes, containers and equipment. They usually are stored in barrels. About 6.9 million cubic meters of low-level and mixed wastes are expected to need disposal in DOE sites over the next 20 years, mostly at their home sites. Hanford and other sites would serve locations that can't bury their wastes.