Tagged: Hanford Waste Treatment Plant

At the Hanford Nuclear Reservation more than 200 employees received layoff notices this month. There could be 2,500 furloughs, all because of the federal budget cuts known as the sequester. That would further slow cleanup at the southeast Washington site. Meanwhile, radioactive waste at Hanford continues to leak from underground tanks.

RICHLAND, Wash. – A federal watchdog agency says work should stop on parts of Hanford’s troubled Waste Treatment Plant. That’s the complex factory in southeast Washington being built to treat 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. A new report out Friday says the project will cost even more and take even longer.

The new report by the federal Government Accountability Office says the U.S. has paid contractors millions of dollars for work they didn’t do right. And the agency recommends trying to recoup those tax dollars.

Federal and state officials announced this week that construction can partially resume at Hanford’s massive waste treatment plant now that some technical problems have been resolved. But a top former Hanford manager is calling for the Secretary of Energy to halt work altogether on the southeast Washington project.