New Management Takes Over at Hanford Tank Farms

Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2008 RICHLAND, WA - At the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington, 53 million gallons of radioactive goo are stored in unstable underground tanks near the Columbia River. This week, a new government contractor is taking over the job of managing that waste. Anna King explains.

A federal contractor called CH2M Hill is handing over its duties at Hanford to a new company: Washington River Protection Solutions. The federal government praised CH2M Hill for its nine years of managing waste in what’s called a tank farm. But the contractor was responsible for a major leak of radioactive goo a year and a half ago. Carrie Meyer is a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy. She says keeping an eye on the Cold War era waste is a big job.

Meyer: We will be putting a closer focus on work that is transitioning to insure that things are going as planned.

In the switch between contractors, top managers will change, but most of the workers and many of the policies will stay the same.

Copyright 2008 Northwest Public Radio

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