A new plan for nuclear cleanup will add oversight but delay the project significantly.
Nuclear cleanup at the Hanford nuclear reservation will now be delayed by nearly two decades under a new plan endorsed by the governors of Oregon and Washington.
The new agreement governing tank waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation would boost court and state oversight of what state officials call the most technically challenging and expensive cleanup in U.S. history.
But it would extend by 19 years the final treatment deadline for 53 million gallons of radioactive sludge, some of which is already leaking from single-wall tanks, from 2028 to 2047. By then, many of Hanford’s 11,000 workers will be drawing Social Security.
Read the full story at OregonLive.com.
