Governor Inslee isn’t happy with the state of the Federal Government’s plan for Hanford cleanup.
After meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz, Inslee said the federal department’s “draft cleanup plan” was inadequate on two respects. It doesn’t address what the federal government will do in the near future with leaking tanks of hazardous waste from decades of making parts for nuclear weapons. It doesn’t have an adequate long-term plan for containing the waste and shipping out of state to a permanent storage facility.
Inslee said the plan Moniz provided was merely a draft, not a completed plan, but doesn’t give Washington the predictability the state needs. The governor said he is consulting with state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who said his office would hold the federal government “legally accountable for environmental cleanup at Hanford.”
You know, other than the sort term and the long term, things are looking just fine. Looking at it from Western Washington, Hanford feels like a problem that never gets any better. Democratic or Republican administration, the Feds don’t know how to deal with it.
Part of every Washington governor’s job is holding the Feds’ feet to the fire on Hanford cleanup. If the state lets up, the Feds will weasel out of their commitments. Full funding of the cleanup should be non-negotiable, and if DOE doesn’t keep its commitments, the attorney general should haul them back into court to enforce the cleanup pacts already made.