A sneak peek at Hanford's potential 2002 budget shows shortages that could slow cleanup efforts that year and beyond.

Slowdowns could affect studying how to remove contaminated soil in the 200 Area, cleaning the radioactive Buildings 324 and 327 and converting scrap plutonium into safer forms.

Department of Energy officials briefed two Hanford Advisory Board committees Wednesday in Richland on how the first planning figures for fiscal 2002 could slow these projects.

Because of reduced budget figures, DOE does not expect to meet some Tri-Party Agreement cleanup deadlines. The agreement legally governs DOE's cleanup obligations and schedules. But the state Department of Ecology does not plan to cut DOE any slack on the potential shortfalls.

"We expect DOE to request adequate funding (from Congress) to meet all milestones. ... We're not willing to renegotiate (Tri-Party Agreement) milestones due to a lack of funding," said Clark Connor, an ecology department budget analyst.

Hanford's cleanup budget has remained relatively level at about $1.1 billion each year and is expected to continue that way for the next several years. But DOE's calculations earlier this year show that about $1.3 billion will be needed in fiscal 2001 and 2002 to meet the agency's legal obligations. DOE is scheduled to unveil its fiscal 2001 budget request to Congress in February 2000. Then it will do some preliminary crunching of 2002 budget figures to mold that year's budget request, which should be formally made in February 2001. Even though fiscal 2000 began six weeks ago on Oct. 1, DOE is not expected to nail down what each site, including Hanford , will actually get until later this month.

Wednesday's briefings looked at DOE's initial figures on the "environmental restoration" and "facilities transition" segments of a possible 2002 budget. Wednesday's briefings did not look at tank farms, K Basins and several other projects.

Environmental restoration by Bechtel Hanford Inc. covers removing contaminated soil near the Columbia River, sealing off old reactors and tackling subterranean contaminants. Facilities transition covers neutralizing plutonium at the Plutonium Finishing Plant, cleaning Buildings 324 and 327, including two former nuclear fuel plants and labs north of Richland, and several other projects.

Hanford officials showed these initial planning figures Wednesday:

- Bechtel needs about $164 million in both 2001 and 2002 to meet cleanup deadlines. Those represent increases from about $135 million in annual allocations Bechtel usually gets.

And even $164 million appears too low when looking long-range. The funds do not pay for preliminary work that must be done in 2001 and 2002 to enable Hanford to meet other obligations in 2003 and beyond. Initial figures say Bechtel will need $157 million in 2000, $181 million in 2001 and $237 million in 2002.

- The facilities transition program needs $200 million in 2000 to meet its obligations but is expected to get $193 million or $194 million.

That's because Hanford may have to take $19 million to $23 million of its overall budget to help DOE handle legal problems at its Paducah, Ky., sites and send Hanford's payments-in-lieu-of-taxes to Mid-Columbia governments. DOE mistakenly did not include the PILT funds in its fiscal 2000 budget request.

Facilities transition will need $204 million in 2001, but DOE's budget request target is $160 million. And planning figures for 2002 puts the need at $194 million with no budget request target set.

The 2001 and 2002 shortfalls would create a ripple effect that could jeopardize a 2004 deadline to finish neutralizing the PFP's plutonium. The 2001 shortfalls could delay the final decontamination of Buildings 324 and 327, although DOE has approached Fluor Daniel about an incentive plan to recover lost time and accelerate the completion date. Building 327 contains B Cell, probably Hanford's most dangerous room with 2 million curies of radioactive dirt and junk inside. B Cell's junk and the majority of its radioactivity is expected to be removed on time in late 2000.