[DOE LETTERHEAD]

November 1, 2002

The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004-2901

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The purpose of this letter is to report completion of 2000-l Implementation Plan Milestone, titled, "Complete Stabilization and Packaging of Solutions," due July 31, 2002. The Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) completed packaging on July 29, 2002.

The solutions were stabilized and packaged using several methods. High plutonium content solution materials were stabilized using a precipitation process followed by thermal stabilization. The lower plutonium content solutions were either placed in an absorbent matrix inside drums that were shipped to the Hanford Site Central Waste Complex (CWC) or labpacked and shipped to the CWC. The organic solution drum that was labpacked and shipped to CWC is awaiting further characterization prior to shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

In addition, attached is our response to your June 11, 2002 letter forwarding a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Staff Issue Report, titled, "Recommendation 94-l/2000-1 Stabilization Activities at Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant". Hanford also provided you a status of actions related to the issues identified in the referenced report during a Board visit to Hanford in July 2002. We will continue to manage and track progress on all Recommendation 2000-l commitments and keep you and your staff apprised of our progress. If you have any further questions, please contact me at (202) 586-7709 or Paul Golan at (202) 586-0738.

Jessie Hill Roberson
Assistant Secretary for
Environmental Management

Enclosure

cc: Mark Whitaker, S-3.1
Paul Golan, EM-3
Keith Klein, DOE-RL