Federal Report Says Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant Construction Still In Question
Listen
A federal watchdog agency said Wednesday that it’s hard to prove that Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant is safe.
A plant that will treat some of the nation’s nastiest radioactive sludge has to be carefully built, and each step documented. But the Government Accountability Office said in its report that the Department of Energy isn’t holding its contractor accountable, and that the agency and its prime contractor, Bechtel, might not be able to fully document the safety of the plant until around Christmas.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden called that unacceptable.
“The Department of Energy and the private contractor have still been unable to produce, at my request, the paperwork necessary to show whether the steel used at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant is safe,” the Democratic senator said.
The report also founds the U.S. Energy department’s quality assurance experts might not be independent enough to oversee the contractor.
Copyright 2018 Northwest News Network
Related Stories:
Unpacked: What federal cuts could mean for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
NWPB host Phineas Pope speaks with Doug Ray, a former associate laboratory director at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, to learn more about possible cuts to the lab.
What’s coming out of the stack? Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant must pass emissions muster
A nearly two month long study is underway at the Hanford cleanup site, in southeast Washington state.
Washington’s Senator Patty Murray said Hanford safety in jeopardy, she’s ‘really, really worried’
(Credit: Anna King / NWPB) About a dozen federal workers have been fired from the Hanford site in southeast Washington state. Hanford is the contaminated legacy of plutonium manufacturing during
