Threat at Hanford can't be ignored

SKEPTICAL members of Congress were the best possible audience for the grim update provided by "60 Minutes" on the soaring expenses and repeated delays of cleanup at Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The broadcast Sunday night was a potent reminder of the lethal threat tens of millions of gallons of radioactive waste in underground tanks pose for this region. Groundwater fouled by leaking tanks is headed toward the Columbia River. CBS correspondent Leslie Stahl's tour of Hanford presented a sad accounting of fumbles by contractor Bechtel National Inc. and the woeful oversight by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Yes, the tally of expensive stumbles and miscues could spook an already skittish Congress on the verge of a screaming, arm-waving flight from a cleanup budget that has climbed from $4.3 billion to $11.3 billion. All the incentives for a cheap, quick fix loom in those scary numbers.

The budget numbers are bad, progress is painfully slow and the state's patriotic sacrifices to help win a world war and Cold War confrontations matter not a whit.

No, the power of the report was in the sheer potential for ecological disaster.

An interview with Gov. Christine Gregoire closed out the report, and she did an excellent job of punctuating the absence of any margin for failure.

The technical challenge presented by the waste at Hanford is enormous, but it is dwarfed by the consequences of Hanford's contamination reaching the Columbia.