PORTLAND -- The Department of Energy wants to avoid converting 75 percent of Hanford's radioactive tank wastes into glass.

That concept was broached in a Nov. 19 memo from DOE cleanup czar Jesse Roberson to DOE's budget office. Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, who obtained a copy of the memo, distributed it Thursday at a board meeting in Portland.

The memo shocked board members.

Such a move would drastically change Hanford's plan for dealing with its worst environmental problem, 53 million gallons of highly radioactive wastes in 177 underground tanks.

Hanford has more tank wastes than all other DOE sites combined and is also the only site without a glassification plant.

Roberson's memo addressed DOE efforts to trim its estimate that 70 years and $300 billion are needed to clean up all wastes at nuclear weapons production sites.

The memo lists nine top priorities, including cutting $100 billion and 30 years from current cost and schedule estimates.

Another priority notes, "High-level waste processing is the single largest cost ... in the environmental management program today. Eliminate the need to vitrify at least 75 percent of the waste scheduled for vitrification today. Develop at least two proven, cost-effective solutions to every high-level waste stream ... "

Vitrification means converting the radioactive waste into glass.

The other priorities include shrinking DOE cleanup areas by 40 percent in four years, opening Hanford and the Nevada Test Site to receive mixed low-level radioactive and chemical wastes from other DOE sites, and to "deinventory nuclear materials" at Hanford and three other sites by 2004. The memo did not elaborate on what that would mean.

But it was the proposal to not glassify 75 percent of the wastes that stunned HAB members. State officials learned of the proposal last week and are also disturbed.

"It's clear that the Department of Energy is saying, 'To hell with the Tri-Party Agreement,' " said HAB member Gerald Pollet, representing Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group. The agreement governs Hanford cleanup.

HAB member Greg DeBruler, representing Columbia Riverkeeper, said: "I don't think we have (a DOE) that is reflective of the wishes of the Northwest. We have an agency reflective of the Washington, D.C., Beltway."

Mike Wilson, nuclear waste program manager for the state Department of Ecology, said: "That memo is one of the most troubling things we've seen in a long time."

"It's somewhat disconcerting that this just kind of shows up without folks getting advance notice of a significant shift in policy," said Joe Shorin, an assistant state attorney general for Hanford matters.

In subsequent statements, Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., said they also found the proposal troubling.

"It is time for the administration to understand that we will not let them renege on the promise made to clean up Hanford," Murray said.

The administration appears to want to sacrifice the people living near Hanford, which is "morally reprehensible," she said.

Roberson and Bob Card, the undersecretary of Energy, recently confirmed their commitment to completing construction of the first vitrification plant at Hanford and the first phase of vitrification during a meeting with Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said Hastings spokesman Todd Young.

The proposal would not affect plans for the next decade, he said, which would handle 10 percent of the waste.

Looking far to the future, Roberson wants to see if there are less expensive ways to clean up the waste, Young said.

State officials and HAB members cautioned that they don't know the overall context of Roberson's memo.

For example, since it is an internal DOE memo, HAB members and state officials said they don't know whether the 75 percent reduction is a trial balloon or a serious concept.

Also, the Northwest needs to find out whether the number is arbitrary or is backed up by appropriate studies, said Dennis Faulk of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The memo needs to be probed in the context of Hanford's initial and subsequent glassification projects, which run through 2018, Shorin said.

Consequently, HAB members are preparing to send a letter to Roberson to ask for clarification.

The letter also is to address other board concerns, including:

n Roberson recently has taken some decision-making authority from DOE field offices.

That reverses a trend of the late 1990s, when Hastings pushed for more authority for field offices, which are closer to the actual cleanup.

n Signals from DOE Washington, D.C., that top officials may be reassigned. The board wants to keep Keith Klein and Harry Boston as DOE's top Hanford managers because they know the site and its issues well.