Construction of Hanford's radioactive waste glassification plants should begin by August 2001, the Department of Energy and the Washington Department of Ecology have agreed.

But it will depend on whether DOE contracts with BNFL Inc. by next August to build and operate the plants, which by 2018 would convert into glass 10 percent of Hanford's 54 million gallons of radioactive underground tank waste.

DOE and the state reached the agreement this week, ending six months of talks on how to incorporate the glassification project into the Tri-Party Agreement.

The agreement is the legal pact among the state, DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that governs Hanford cleanup. The state is the lead regulator on tank wastes.

DOE and the state also agreed the first wastes should go through the plants by December 2007 as the complex prepares for full operations by December 2009.

None of the agreed-upon dates is a surprise. BNFL, DOE, the state and other Hanford interests have aimed for the listed dates for at least a couple of years.

But they are not in the Tri-Party Agreement yet, said Roger Stanley, a state Tri-Party Agreement negotiator.

What was agreed upon are basic dates and issues that need to be put into the pact. Negotiators hope to have detailed contractual language hammered out by Jan. 31, Stanley said. Then the negotiated additions will go out for public comment before being incorporated into the agreement.

Remaining issues include:

- Scheduling the removal of the solid wastes in Hanford's 149 single-shell tanks after almost all of the liquids are removed.

- How to incorporate DOE's new tank farm supervising agency, the Office of River Protection, into the agreement.

- Establishing construction deadlines for some of the glassification plants' auxiliary facilities.

- Establishing how the construction will be monitored.

Also, if DOE and BNFL sign a contract by August, the state and DOE then will establish two legally enforceable construction progress deadlines between 2001 and 2007.

The reason these talks took so long is that the state and DOE disagreed on how many Tri-Party Agreement milestones were needed and how enforceable they should be.

The stalled negotiations led the Northwest's top four Hanford cleanup managers - Chuck Clarke, the EPA's regional administrator; Tom Fitzsimmons, the state ecology department's director; and Dick French and Keith Klein, DOE's two top managers at Hanford - to meet twice to work out their differences.

Under the agreement, DOE must request adequate money from Congress to keep to the legal timetable.

Congress is not obligated to provide the money, but having DOE and state agree on the basic schedule should help influence Congress, Stanley said.