A 2021 aerial photo of Hanford’s 200 Area, which houses the tanks and under-construction Waste Treatment Plant, in southeast Washington. (Credit: U.S. Department of Energy) Listen (Runtime 1:01) Read There […]Read More
The last in-person public meeting about Hanford cleanup was in Richland in 2019. (Courtesy of Washington State Department of Ecology) Listen (Runtime :56) Read The public can ask questions and […]Read More
Four utilities in Washington state received funding from the U.S Department of Energy to strengthen the electrical grid against future wildfires and ensure reliability to customers. That funding comes from the federal Grid Resilience and Innovations Partnerships Program, which is investing in 58 projects across 44 states. Read More
The 324 Building on the Hanford Site (Courtesy: U.S. Department of Energy) Read A creepy old building used for 30 years to research radioactive materials from 1966 to 1996 has […]Read More
The states of Washington and Oregon have submitted a joint bid to the U.S. Department of Energy to get a share of $8 billion that Congress set aside to launch "Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs" around the nation. But good luck trying to learn what exactly the bi-state bid entails, other than the safe presumption that at least one industrial hydrogen production facility would Read More
Ongoing Superfund cleanup work of radioactive and other contamination at the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho has been successful at protecting humans and the environment, U.S. and state officials say. The five-year review by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality also said that Read More
Newly confirmed Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm seized on the bruising winter weather that left millions of Texans without heat and electricity last week to press for reform of the state's power systems, arguing that pivoting to a clean energy economy can ensure a dependable grid and help create jobs.Read More
As President Donald Trump prepared to leave office, his Department of Energy was celebrating that a new analytical lab was “ready to operate” at the Hanford Site in southeast Washington.Read More
David Bowen has owned his own bar in Cle Elum, been a Kittitas County commissioner and managed groundwater nitrate cleanup in the Yakima Valley. Now, he’ll hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable for its cleanup at the site using the Tri-Party Agreement. That’s a 1989 document struck between Ecology, the federal Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Read More
Under the settlement, Bechtel Corp. and Aecom will pay nearly $58 million over allegations from current or former Hanford employees. The workers said they were retaliated against for blowing the whistle over how labor hours were billed. Read More
The report from the independent Government Accountability Office says the U.S. Department of Energy has not found the root causes of the partial collapse of the waste-storage tunnel, and that failures in DOE’s investigation, inspections and maintenance of other aging and contaminated facilities is concerning.Read More
As the country's 14th secretary of energy, Perry leads an agency he once vowed to eliminate. He has emerged as a central figure in the impeachment inquiry of Trump.Read More
An astonishing array of animals and habitats flourished on six obsolete weapons complexes — mostly for nuclear or chemical arms — because the sites banned the public and other intrusions for decades.Read More
A new federal report says that a massive building at the Hanford Nuclear Site is worse off than managers thought. The so-called PUREX -- Plutonium Uranium Extraction -- plant isn’t clean. Starting in 1956 the plant processed loads of plutonium. Its walls are up to 6 feet thick, and it’s as long as three football fields.Read More
The state of Washington is setting new deadlines for cleanup at Hanford and the plutonium production site that contains a massive quantity of radioactive waste.Read More
Federal watchdogs are looking into all types of parts at a $17 billion construction project at the Hanford Nuclear Site. The Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Energy has found a sample of parts going into a large waste treatment plant at Hanford had problems.Read More
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, site of the nation's worst nuclear accident, will shut down by the end of September. Backers failed to secure subsidies to keep the plant operating. Read More
As nuclear and radioactive waste piles up, private companies are stepping in with their own solutions for the nation’s radioactive spent fuel. One is proposing a temporary storage site in New Mexico, and another is seeking a license for a site in Texas. But most experts agree that what’s needed is a permanent site, like Yucca Mountain, that doesn’t require humans to manage it.Read More
A new proposal from the Trump administration could dramatically change the way the government cleans up radioactive tank waste at Hanford. What does that mean? Anna King explains.Read More
In the middle of Hanford's desert, there’s a tunnel that stretches a third of a mile underground. Anna King got a first-of-its kind look at how work is progressing to prevent another collapse at one of the tunnels willed with radioactive waste.Read More
A fresh federal watchdog report about Hanford says after a major review, systemic fraud and inadequate oversight keep happening at the site, and it’s costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Read More
Many people drove as much as three hours to attend a rare public meeting about Hanford in Hood River Thursday night, Nov. 1. The common thread: concern about the Columbia River, and the health of their communities. Read More
Keeping the Columbia River safe is at the core of several public meetings scheduled for Seattle and Portland next week. It all has to do with decisions being made hundreds of miles away in the desert at Hanford. The question regulators are tacking: How do you keep a mostly-empty radioactive waste tank safe for hundreds, thousands even a million years? Read More
Recently, several mayors in the Tri-Cities publicly called for Tunnel 2 to be filled in immediately. They’re worried a collapse of the tunnel could throw up a plume of dust exposing workers or the public.Read More
The Trump administration has abandoned its bid to sell off the Pacific Northwest’s publicly owned utility transmission lines, according to Republican members of Congress who were briefed on the decision.Read More
A federal watchdog agency said Wednesday that it's hard to prove that Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant is safe. Read More
Northwest senators had a lot of questions for U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry during a Senate committee hearing Tuesday. They grilled him on the safety of steel in a massive treatment plant under construction at the Hanford nuclear site.Read More
The U.S. Department of Energy is demanding thousands of pages of documentation from one of its top contractors at Hanford. They want to know exactly what grade of steel is being used in a massive radioactive waste treatment plant at the decommissioned nuclear site. Read More
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell that his proposal for offshore oil and gas drilling will reflect the “interests of Washington.” “You should know off the coast of Oregon, Washington, most of California, there are no known resources of any weight,” Zinke said. Read More
Prompt communication between workers and management at the Plutonium Finishing Plant did not occur, so radioactive waste continued to spread at Hanford. That’s according to a new report.Read More
Hanford workers have called a “stop work” at a demolition site over worries of radioactive contamination inside government vehicles. It’s the same site where government contractors have struggled to tame the spread of contamination all winter. Read More
Washington health officials have penned an uncommonly stern letter to the U.S. Department of Energy. It details concerns over the radioactive contamination spread at a Hanford demolition site.Read More
Radioactive waste keeps spreading at a demolition site at Hanford. This week officials have found more contamination on a worker’s boot, on a work trailer and a personal vehicle. Now, a rental car that’s possibly contaminated has ended up in Spokane.Read More
The main processing facility at Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant was demolished from October 10-15, 2017. HANFORD PLATEAU / YOUTUBE – HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YCPS75QW Listen UPDATE: Dec. 21, 2017: The Department of […]Read More
Hanford’s Tunnel 1 has been grouted up to protect the public from further collapse at the southeast nuclear site. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Listen Remember the old train tunnel that […]Read More
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Listen At the Hanford Site in southeast Washington state, a powerful group of citizens who keep watch on the nuclear reservation hasn’t met in months. Northwest […]Read More
U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry tours the HAMMER training facility in Richland, Washington. ANNA KING / NORTHWEST NEWS NETWORK Listen U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry toured […]Read More
