News Releases
Office of Governor Gary Locke
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - October 24, 2003
Contact:  Governor's Communications Office, 360-902-4136

Gov. Locke’s Statement on the Hanford Waste Agreement

OLYMPIA – Gov. Gary Locke today issued the following statement on the agreement reached between the state’s Department of Ecology and the U.S. Department of Energy that establishes a path to cleanup buried waste at Hanford reservation:

“I am extremely pleased that our Department of Ecology and the federal Department of Energy have been able to resolve this matter so that it is mutually beneficial to both parties.

“This agreement finally creates cleanup milestones for major portions of waste at Hanford, milestones the state has requested from the Energy Department from the beginning.

“Today marks a new day in the removal of waste from this site. I congratulate members of the participating agencies and our state’s congressional delegation for their time and work on this issue.”

Between 1970 and 1985, the Department of Energy stored approximately 78,000 55-gallon drums worth of known or suspected transuranic (TRU), mixed TRU and low-level mixed waste at Hanford. The waste remains at the site today, most of it partially buried in unlined trenches.

The 560-square-mile Hanford reservation produced material for nuclear weapons during World War II and the Cold War that followed. It contains more radioactive waste than any other site in the nation.

The 1989 Tri-Party Agreement between the Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Washington established a timetable for cleaning up much of the nuclear waste at Hanford. Milestones for the buried waste were not included at that time, but were expected to be added later.

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