Federal courts may force the U.S. Department of Energy to adhere to new timelines to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington state.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington recently slapped down a 67-page document that says federal Hanford managers have missed key deadlines.
Washington state officials said the U.S. Department of Energy expresses a lot of good intentions, but then doesn’t follow through on a lot of cleanup action. The state wants to see specific timeline goals and deadlines enforced by the courts.
The complicated consent decree was struck back in 2010 and this would be the first time it has been changed.
Hanford is home to 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge in aging underground tanks.
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