Governor, Attorney General reject federal Department of Energy’s proposed changes to Hanford cleanup plan

Plan lacks specificity, accountability and enforceability

OLYMPIA…Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced the state is rejecting the U.S. Department of Energy’s March 31, 2014 proposal to amend the 2010 consent decree governing the retrieval and treatment of high-level radioactive and chemically hazardous waste at Hanford.

"Energy’s proposal lacks sufficient specificity, accountability and enforceability," Inslee said. "An acceptable path forward must be aggressive but realistic and must give the state confidence that tank waste retrieval and treatment will be completed as soon as possible.”

“The people of our region made a significant sacrifice for our nation when the US selected the Hanford site to produce plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II,” Ferguson said. “Today’s announcement should serve as notice to Energy that we are considering taking the next legal step as early as next week.”

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice today, attorneys for Washington state formally rejected the federal Department of Energy’s proposal and detailed the state’s concerns. While the state’s and federal government’s proposed paths forward for cleanup include some similarity, such as in the sequence for beginning various operations of the Waste Treatment Plant, in its letter, the state rejects the lack of specific, accountable and enforceable deadlines in Energy’s proposal.

The state announced its proposed amendments at a news conference on March 31 and is expecting to receive a letter of response from the Departments of Energy and Justice today.

If the federal Department of Energy rejects the state’s proposed amendments, the state may consider triggering dispute resolution, which initiates a 40-day process of good faith negotiation required under the 2010 Consent Decree. If an agreement is not reached, the state may then ask a federal court to issue an order directing Energy to implement the state’s plan.

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Contact:
• Jaime Smith, Governor Inslee’s Communications Office, 360-902-4136
• Janelle Guthrie, Attorney General’s Director of Communications, 360-586-0725
• Dieter Bohrmann, Ecology communications manager, 509-372-7954