High-level negotiations on the Tri-Party Agreement remain temporarily suspended, Hanford regulators told the Hanford Advisory Board in discussions last week in Pasco.

Top Washington state officials are considering what to do and no decision will be made before the end of the legislative session, said Jane Hedges, nuclear waste program manager for the Washington state Department of Ecology.

The state, which regulates the Hanford nuclear reservation with the Environmental Protection Agency, proposed high-level negotiations on the agreement in April 2007 as it became clear that the Department of Energy could not meet key legal deadlines.

The negotiations were seen as an alternative to taking legal action. Of most concern were delays in emptying leak-prone single shell tanks of radioactive waste and a projected eight-year delay in the start of operations at the vitrification plant to treat the waste.

Although talks at the highest level on the Tri-Party Agreement are on hold, EPA continues to enforce the deadlines in the agreement, said Nick Ceto, EPA Hanford project manager.

The last meeting with top federal and state officials to negotiate major changes in the TPA was in October when James Rispoli, DOE assistant secretary of environmental management, came to Richland.

In the negotiations DOE, the EPA and the state have been discussing extending the deadline for emptying radioactive waste from the leak-prone single-shell tanks from 2018 to 2040. The waste from the tanks then would have to be treated by 2047.

Although the vitrification plant would not begin operating until 2019, 35 new interim deadlines for finishing parts of the plant are being considered to make sure construction and startup remain on track.

In exchange for delays in deadlines for retrieving and treating tank waste, DOE would be required to do more work to protect ground water and the Columbia River.

Also being considered is a requirement that DOE prepare a comprehensive look at the work required to finish cleaning up the nuclear reservation, which was used during World War II and the Cold War to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. That would be the basis for developing an all-encompassing cost and schedule for cleanup.

The Hanford Advisory Board issued advice in November recommending DOE proceed with the lifecycle cost and schedule report.

"Although we appreciate your interest in the proposed Hanford Lifecycle Report, that proposed report is part of the ongoing negotiations," DOE replied in a recent letter. "If an agreement is reached, we look forward to input from HAB and many others on the development of the report."

Friday, the advisory board brought up the lifecycle report again in a letter it agreed to send to Rispoli.

The board is looking forward to receiving new audited estimates of the cost and schedule for doing work at Hanford, it wrote. But it still thinks a longer term and more complete look is needed.

"We believe the next step is to develop the lifecycle cost and schedule report that is being discussed in the current Tri-Party Agreement negotiations," the letter said.

A lifecycle report covering "the reasonable range of alternatives to accomplish Hanford cleanup work on schedule or as close to schedule as feasible would be immeasurably helpful - especially in the collaborative development of cleanup priorities," it said.