Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge Retiring

Photograph of Tom Carpenter wearing a blue shirt with white hair and white goatee
Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge is retiring.

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The man who’s been sharply focused on holding federal officials responsible at the Hanford cleanup site has recently announced he’s largely retiring. Tom Carpenter’s last day as the head of the Seattle-based non-profit Hanford Challenge is April 1. 

Carpenter has worked with whistleblowers at Hanford for nearly 40 years. Carpenter’s raised questions about leaking tanks at Hanford, vapors from those tanks sickening workers and the safety of the federal government’s massive construction project – the Waste Treatment Plant.

“Future generations will be affected by the decisions being made at the Hanford site. So, it doesn’t bother me if people don’t like me, especially at the Hanford site – I kind of expect that,” Carpenter said. 

Carpenter says the big challenge remains, cleaning up those millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical tank waste.

 

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Rattlesnake Mountain on the Hanford site in 2022. The mountain is sacred to the Yakama Nation and other Northwest Indigenous tribes and bands near the Hanford site. (Credit: Anna King