Hanford's cleanup budget for fiscal 1999 is $1.104 billion, enough to meet the site's Tri-Party Agreement obligations for the year, Department of Energy officials said Thursday.

The spending package puts some legal obligations beyond 1999 at risk, although those problems could be tackled later, said Lloyd Piper, DOE's deputy Hanford manager.

Congress approved appropriations of $5.6 billion for DOE's nationwide cleanup programs about two months ago.

But DOE recently finish dividing that money among its sites, and the Richland office just completed spending plans for individual Hanford programs.

About $990 million of Hanford's cleanup money goes to programs controlled by DOE's Richland office. Another $109 million earmarked for Hanford cleanup is controlled by DOE's Washington, D.C., headquarters.

Cleanup money at Hanford also includes $5 million from leftover money at other DOE sites last year.

Fiscal 1999 began Oct. 1, but DOE usually does not nail down figures for specific programs until later. Managers at Hanford and other DOE sites usually start October with educated guesses on the budget.

The fiscal 1999 budget is roughly equal to the $1.093 billion spent at Hanford in fiscal 1998. DOE originally requested $1.114 billion from Congress in February for Hanford cleanup in 1999. Although DOE expects to meet its Tri-Party Agreement obligations in 1999, Piper said some deadlines beyond 1999 are jeopardized by this year's final budget. The Tri-Party Agreement is a legal pact between DOE, Washington state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Piper said the 1999 budget can slow progress enough that some radioactive waste tank safety matters and some environmental studies in central Hanford - with deadlines after 1999 - could be at risk.

And the budget does not cover some targeted dates set by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board - a highly influential DOE advisory board - on converting Hanford's plutonium into safer forms.

However, DOE and the safety board are working on rescheduling that timetable, Piper said.

Here are some highlights of the 1999 cleanup budget:

Work on removal of spent nuclear fuel from the K Basins is set at $170 million, which is $3 million less than DOE's original request to Congress. However, some administrative costs in the project have been reduced since the original request last February.

The tank farms budget is $306 million, which is $3 million more than the original request. Some extra money is going to speeding up pumping of wastes from Hanford's single-shell tanks into safer double- shell tanks.

Bechtel Hanford Inc.'s environmental restoration budget is $146 million, which is $11 million more than the original request.

Some extra money is to keep momentum on "cocooning" the F and DR reactor complexes. Cocooning is DOE's term for demolishing and sealing up Hanford's old reac tors. For a long time, this project was at risk of being delayed by money problems. And some extra money is to bolster efforts to create a master plan on coordinating Hanford's hodgepodge of programs to study and fix underground contamination problems.

The cleaning out of old Hanford buildings and processing plants is getting $156 million, which is $21 million less than originally requested. This will delay or alter some work at the Plutonium Finishing Plant.

The budget sets Fluor Daniel's team's indirect costs for cleanup work - a combination of of overhead and shared equipment costs - at $253 million. Fluor has financial incentives in its contract to trim that figure.

Fluor has told DOE it is confident of trimming at least $10 million in indirect costs, with the money being shifted to direct cleanup work.

That means although Hanford's overall cleanup budget won't grow, Fluor should be able to squeeze an extra $10 million worth of cleanup work out of it, DOE officials said.

DOE is adding $100 million in 1999 to the $285 million already set aside to eventually pay BNFL Inc. to convert tank wastes into glass. DOE is saving that money for the eventual payments scheduled to begin in 2007.

This set-aside money is not counted in the cleanup budget. So the extra $100 million is not counted in Hanford's 1999 budget of $1.104 billion.