Washington's Governor calls a new proposal to phase-in portions of cleanup at Hanford an intriguing idea, but says it doesn’t solve immediate problems of leaking waste tanks.
Governor Jay Inslee, who visited southeast Washington Thursday, was responding to a new plan this week from U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
“We’ve made clear to the Department of Energy that they need to move forward with a plan to stabilize these tanks and remove them from the leaking tanks," said Inslee. "So we can’t take our eye off the ball and the immediate threat which is the leaking tanks as well. Both things need to happen.” '
The governor says the people of Washington are owed a swift solution for the 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge stored in underground tanks at the Hanford reservation. The federal plan would phase-in a massive waste treatment plant to process radioactive waste into glass logs.
Copyright 2013 Northwest News Network
