Feds: State's Hanford site cleanup request is too expensive

Source: Associated Press

Cleanup deadlines sought by the state of Washington for the nation's most polluted nuclear weapons production site would require an extra $18 billion over the next 14 years and should be rejected as too expensive, the federal government said in a court filing.

The U.S. Department of Justice said getting that much money for the project at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation would jeopardize other nuclear cleanup projects across the nation.

The Justice Department and the state of Washington filed documents on Friday in U.S. District Court in the state's lawsuit seeking a swifter cleanup of Hanford, The Tri-City Herald reported Sunday.

The state criticized federal management of Hanford and urged the court to require tight oversight of Hanford's leak-prone underground waste tanks and construction of a $13 billion vitrification plant - the largest capital construction project in the country - to treat the waste for eventual burial.

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