State looks into how to enforce Hanford initiative

Thursday, November 4, 2004

By SHANNON DININNY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

State officials are reviewing a voter-approved initiative that calls for limiting the amount of nuclear waste stored at the Hanford site, trying to determine what will be required to enforce it.

Opponents of the initiative contend its future remains in doubt despite overwhelming support from voters Tuesday.

The 586-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation was created in World War II as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project, which produced the atomic bomb.

It remains the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste stored in underground tanks and 75,000 55-gallon drums of transuranic, radioactive and hazardous waste buried onsite. Transuranic waste is highly radioactive and can take thousands of years or more to decay to safe levels.

Initiative 297, approved by a more than 2-1 ratio, blocks the U.S. Department of Energy from sending more waste to Hanford until the waste already there is cleaned up. The measure takes effect in 30 days.

Officials with the state Department of Ecology were meeting yesterday to analyze the initiative and figure out how to enforce it, said agency spokeswoman Sheryl Hutchison.

The Energy Department took no official position on the initiative but was also studying the measure and evaluating its options, spokeswoman Colleen French said.

If the federal agency fights the initiative, the U.S. Justice Department would handle the court case.

"Legal challenges are inevitable," said Grant Nelson, government affairs director for the Association of Washington Business. That group, essentially the state's chamber of commerce, opposed the measure.

A lengthy court battle could delay cleanup and jeopardize about $2 billion in annual federal funding for work at the contaminated site, Nelson said.

"I think it's safe to say the federal government will not want to put its limited available resources toward a project that is now clouded," he said.

Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, said initiative supporters will mount a vigorous defense if the measure goes to court.

The Seattle-based Hanford watchdog group sponsored the initiative and covered most of its $1 million cost.

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