PORTLAND -- The dissolving of its counterpart in north Texas has the Hanford Advisory Board worried about its own future.

The board discussed the matter Thursday in Portland.

Earlier this year a Texas version of HAB at the Department of Energy's Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas, dissolved because of a combination of internal splits and DOE drastically limiting its role.

Pantex is a nuclear weapons production plant that also has caused environmental cleanup problems similar to Hanford's. For years Pantex's public advisory board dealt with both weapons and cleanup issues under the idea that the weapons mission contributes to the area's environmental problems.

But several months ago DOE limited the Pantex board's role so it could not provide advice on weapons production matters.

Meanwhile, the Pantex board operated in a manner similar to the Hanford Advisory Board, which represents 32 diverse Hanford constituencies. That similarity is that any decision must receive close to unanimous support from its board members.

The Pantex board had problems achieving that unanimity, said Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board.

Martin has discussed the matter with the leadership of similar public advisory boards at other DOE cleanup sites.

In accordance with a federal law, DOE set up the public advisory boards several years ago.

Meanwhile, HAB members are worried about what they perceive as an increasing trend by DOE's headquarters in Washington, D.C., to shortchange public input into the federal agency's cleanup decisions.

And Martin said he and the leaders of the other public advisory boards plan to meet in February, with one of their agenda items possibly being to write a letter to DOE expressing concern that other boards might meet the Pantex's board's fate.

HAB member Susan Leckband, representing Hanford's nonunion workers, noted that the federal law creating the DOE advisory boards will expire in May 2002. "Pantex might be a portent of things to come. ... All they have to do is nothing. Present company excepted (referring to Hanford's DOE officials), DOE is very good at doing nothing," Leckband said.

HAB member Keith Smith, representing Hanford's union workers, contended the Hanford board has been much more productive than Pantex's board.

"We've demonstrated that we can put aside our differences to reach consensus," Smith said.