Hanford Advisory Board members agree the group must evolve to be effective in influencing cleanup efforts at the nuclear site.

They just aren't sure how to do it.

Next February, Todd Martin, an environmental consultant from Northport, is scheduled to replace Merilyn Reeves of Amity, Ore., as the board's chairman.

The change has been accompanied by some serious navel-gazing on ways to improve the board's effectiveness.

Martin's election came just after 36 people -- board members plus state and federal officials who deal with the board -- completed a survey that showed they believe the HAB is only moderately successful in providing good advice to the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology.

Survey results showed most of the respondents believe the board greatly influences the EPA and state Ecology Department, the two leading regulatory agencies at Hanford.

But they expressed mixed feelings on how much the board influences DOE decisions, and most said they believe the board has little or no effect on Congress, which controls Hanford's budget.

Right now, the HAB is a prime example of how public participation in government can be democratic and powerful, and messy and unwieldy.

The board has 30 voting members and a few nonvoting members representing about 35 different Hanford political constituencies. These include environmentalists, Tri-City interests, Hanford workers, Oregon and Western Washington residents, Northwest tribes and others.

Each seat has one or two alternate representatives, who also often attend the meetings, along with many DOE, EPA and state officials. A meeting usually consists of 50 to 75 opinionated people -- most of whom talk at length.

The board's greatest political strength and often its greatest source of frustration is that any official stance requires unanimous approval of competing interests.

It leads to endless meetings, debates, compromises, requests for information, grandstanding, and nitpicking before the board reaches a united stand.

"It's somewhat effective. But I'm disappointed in (the board's) tendency to micromanage," said board member Gordon Rogers of Pasco, representing the public at large.

Practically every board member interviewed voiced some frustration with the body. Compromises water down stances. The board should concentrate on this issue instead of that issue. The board is too critical of DOE, or it is too much of a DOE lapdog.

But board members also point out the group has played a major role in molding Hanford's cleanup priorities and annual budgets, as well as providing feedback on the site's constantly evolving cleanup plans.

Reeves worries about the board drifting a bit from encouraging public participation in Hanford issues -- instead concentrating too much on insider issues.

"We get too involved in the technical details. We haven't done enough to further the understanding (of Hanford's cleanup) by the general public," she said.

Probably the greatest unifying factor among the board members is an almost universal suspicion of DOE, especially in Washington, D.C.

"We're all worried about (DOE's headquarters in Washington, D.C.) trying to emasculate us. We're worried they might succeed, but we'll fight it," said board member Norma Jean Germond, representing Oregon's League of Women Voters.

That matter especially worries Reeves, who believes bureaucrats at DOE headquarters want to make all major decisions inside the Beltway. She sees the trend as a threat to local and regional involvement and influence over cleanup at Hanford and other sites.

This cynicism toward Washington, D.C., has been bolstered by a change in top DOE leaders every few years, and new master cleanup plans coming and going even quicker. In early 2001, Hanford's 12-year-old cleanup mission will see its fifth energy secretary and sixth DOE cleanup czar.

Hanford has seen the accelerated cleanup of spent nuclear fuel at the K Basins, much ballyhooed in the mid-1990s, stumble badly at the end of the decade.

Its federal and contractor architects were long gone before the project imploded, pushing its 2001 completion date back to 2004.

DOE's 1996 proposal to clean up most of its sites nationwide by 2006 is fizzling and fading. Again, that plan's creators are no longer around.

A new way to manage Hanford came in late 1996, when Fluor Hanford became the "brains" of a network of 12 major subcontractors.

That idea ran into numerous troubles. Four years later, Fluor now manages a much different, simpler and more effective corporate team with about half of 1996's chief executive officers gone. So are some companies in the original Fluor team.

And this year, Hanford's huge tank waste glassification project -- and its revolutionary financing plan that depended on private investments -- fell apart.

DOE is now trying to put a new plan and corporate team in place by Jan. 15, 2001. That means a new president, a new energy secretary and a new DOE headquarters will inherit a new giant project they had no part in creating.

In many cases, the HAB's members have been around longer than the top DOE and contractor officials planning Hanford's future.

"Much of the institutional history of Hanford is with the board because of the turnover," Martin said.

Now, DOE wants to radically shift Hanford's money and resources to speed up cleanup along the Columbia River -- with an initial plan to be in place by early 2001.

Hanford Advisory Board members like the general idea but have a long list of questions and concerns they want addressed.

Some board members view the issues as potential showstoppers. Many HAB members believe a united thumbs-up or thumbs-down by the board in the near future will influence how the new presidential administration and Congress will view the accelerated river shore cleanup plan.

Meanwhile, most HAB members believe the board must change to stay relevant, and to become more effective in getting heard in Washington, D.C.

But when board members talk about perceived problems and changes, they talk in broad, general terms with few details.

Committees should be revamped. Internal communications need improvement. The board's priorities must be examined. The long rambling meetings need more focus. More public involvement is needed.

Martin, the chairman-elect, faces the task of getting the board to adopt some of these changes -- a job comparable to herding 30 cats.

"We'll just have to make suggestions, talk about them, and try to reach a consensus," he said.