The Hanford Advisory Board plans to spend Wednesday chewing over a Department of Energy proposal to accelerate cleanup efforts along the Columbia River at Hanford.

While that concept is scheduled to be talked about a little today at the Pasco Doubletree Hotel, a more in-depth discussion is set from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Wednesday at the Washington State University at Tri-Cities campus in Richland.

DOE's Richland office proposed speeding up cleanup along the Hanford river shore to get most of it done by 2012. And the Hanford board wants to study the concept next week to make formal recommendations to DOE in December.

If DOE goes ahead with this concept, it will have to increase Hanford's cleanup budget -- excluding the waste tank farms -- from $755 million for the current fiscal 2001 to about $800 million for fiscal 2002.

DOE -- under a new presidential administration and a new secretary of energy -- is expected to unveil its fiscal 2002 budget request to Congress in February 2001.

Part of the Hanford Advisory Board recently discussed some pros and cons of DOE's proposal.

So far, many board members support the idea if the extra money materializes.

But board members also worry about some 200 Area soil studies and cleanup being delayed to help the river shore work.

Also they want the 618-10 and 618-11 burial sites near the river to be included in the accelerated cleanup. Site 618-11, potentially the most radioactive spot near the rivers is not in DOE's proposal, with DOE planning not to start tackling that site until 2010.

Meanwhile, board members are somewhat split on whether public relations should drive cleanup plans. The reason to speed river shore cleanup is to finish work on a major chunk of Hanford, which includes easier projects, in 10 years to show tangible progress to a skeptical and cynical Congress that controls Hanford's purse strings.

Also, there is no consensus on what the final state of a cleaned-up river shore area should look like. And board members want to know more about DOE's plan to award a "closure" contract in 2002 for this project. Such a contract would leave that company in charge until the work is finished -- essentially becoming a 10-year contract.

Also Thursday, the Hanford Advisory Board:

n Interviewed board members Shelley Cimon and Leon Swenson as the two candidates to replace Merilyn Reeves in February as the board's chairperson.

Reeves, a public-at-large representative from Oregon, plans to step down in February when she finishes six years as chairwoman. The overall board plans to select her successor today.

Cimon is a state of Oregon representative from La Grande. Swenson is a public-at-large representative from Richland.

n Learned the state has not decided yet how to deal with DOE's plan to slip the deadline for a fully operational waste glassification plant by 13 months from December 2009 to January 2011. DOE unveiled the 2011 date when it advertised for companies to bid for the glassification project. Officially, the deadline for a fully operational glassification plant is December 2009 under the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact governing Hanford's cleanup.

The state is waiting until Jan. 15, to decide if it will contest the delay. That is when DOE is expected to announce the new glassification contractor, and make public that company's plan of attack.