Hanford could have used analytical labs more cost-effectively in recent years, a recent Department of Energy inspector general's report concluded.

That Nov. 23 report said Hanford spent at least $1 million unnecessarily in the past few years because of those inefficiencies.

Officials at DOE's two Hanford offices agree with the report's observations.

The Inspector General's Office looked at five cases of Hanford's analyses of water and waste samples in the late 1990s. In three cases, the investigators were satisfied with how the labs were used. But in two cases, it concluded the use of lab services could have been more efficient.

Those two cases are:

- DOE transferring the analysis of vapors collected in the underground radioactive waste tanks from existing Pacific Northwest National Laboratory labs to a new Numatec Hanford lab operation in fiscal year which ended Sept. 30, 1997. That has cost DOE $550,00 since then, the report said.

DOE had believed that Numatec could meet the quality control requirements better than PNNL. The report disagreed with the stance.

The report said DOE miscalculated the costs of starting up a Numatec lab and ramping back the PNNL labs. Since then, most of the tank waste vapor analyses have been phased out, with a slight amount still being done by Numatec.

- DOE using roughly 12 commercial labs across the nation for ground water analyses rather than a Waste Management lab at Hanford.

In late 1996, Waste Management submitted a proposal to DOE to perform these analyses for less cost. But DOE took at least two years to decide the lab could be used.

The report said using off-site labs cost DOE $525,000 annually during that period.

Paula Clark, DOE's analytical services program manager, said DOE plans to follow the report's recommendations to do better future cost and efficiency studies in a more timely manner on lab-use decisions.

However, she said decisions to switch or stick with labs are more complicated than a simple cost comparison. Factors include how those decisions would affect other Hanford operations, what specific services are available at each lab and the quality of work at the labs, she said.

Also, current cost and workload figures are different from those of a couple of years ago, she said.

DOE is satisfied with the quality of the ground water analyses now being conducted off-site, Clark said. And there are no proposals before DOE today to replace any of those labs.