Justice Department to try and overturn initiative barring more Hanford waste

YAKIMA -- The federal government plans to ask a judge to overturn a Washington state initiative that bars the U.S. Department of Energy from sending more nuclear waste to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Last month, Washington voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 297, which blocks the Energy Department from sending more waste to south-central Washington's Hanford site until all the existing waste there is cleaned up. The measure is scheduled to take effect tomorrow.

The Justice Department planned to seek a temporary restraining order today in federal court in Yakima to keep the initiative from becoming law, according to a government official familiar with the case.

The government also planned to challenge the constitutionality of the initiative on the grounds that it violates federal laws governing nuclear waste and interstate commerce, the official said.

The 586-square-mile Hanford reservation was created in World War II as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It remains the most contaminated site in the nation, with cleanup costs expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion.

At issue are the federal government's plans for disposing of waste from World War II- and Cold War-era nuclear weapons production nationwide.

The Energy Department chose Hanford to dispose of some mildly radioactive waste and mixed low-level waste, which is laced with chemicals.

The site also would serve as a packaging center for some transuranic waste -- plutonium-contaminated rags, tools and other discarded items -- before it is shipped elsewhere for long-term disposal. Transuranic waste is highly radioactive and can take thousands of years or more to decay to safe levels.

In 2003, Washington state filed a lawsuit to block waste shipments from entering the state, fearing Hanford would become a radioactive waste dump. The Energy Department voluntarily suspended the shipments after the lawsuit was filed, but the case remains in federal court.

Energy Department officials have said the site's most dangerous waste will be shipped out of state. Of the 405 million curies of radioactivity at Hanford, about 374 million curies will be sent to other states for long-term disposal.

Hanford already is home to 53 million gallons of highly radioactive liquid, sludge and salt cake stored in 177 underground tanks.

The Energy Department aims to bury much of that waste in a nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

Another 75,000 55-gallon drums of transuranic, radioactive and hazardous waste also are buried at Hanford.

The roughly $1 million cost of the initiative was largely funded by its sponsor, Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group that contends the initiative will withstand any court challenges.

"Plenty of legal experts have looked at it and said we have the authority to do this," said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest. "We had hoped that the Department of Energy would try to work with the state instead of wasting money and effort fighting in court."

A citizens petition sent the initiative to the Legislature early this year. Lawmakers declined to act on it, sending the measure to the November ballot. Washington state voters approved it Nov. 2 by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.

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