Hanford budget cutbacks criticized

SPOKANE — Congress is slashing more than $100 million from the budget for a plant to clean up the most dangerous radioactive waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation, a move that threatens deadlines for cleaning up the mess, Sen. Patty Murray said Wednesday.

Negotiators for the House and Senate have decided the $626 million requested by the Bush administration to continue construction of the vitrification plant is too much, especially as the nation faces costs of Hurricane Katrina and other problems, said Murray, D-Wash.

The cuts would cause a yearlong delay in construction at the nuclear reservation near Richland, Murray said.

"It means it will cost more in the future, more people will be laid off, and the whole project will be in jeopardy," Murray said by telephone Wednesday evening.

Hanford supporters will have a last chance to restore the money today, before the conference committee on Energy and Water approves the budget, Murray said.

She blamed the U.S. Department of Energy, which operates Hanford, for not defending its budget needs.

"The department is committed to our cleanup obligations at Hanford and views the waste-treatment plant as a critical part of our overall strategy," said Mike Waldron, a spokesman for Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. "The department has been fully engaged with the Congress and has vigorously advocated for both the project and the need to fully fund the president's budget request of $626 million."

The vitrification plant has been plagued with construction woes for years and is only 30 percent completed.

The plant is designed to convert decades-old radioactive waste from Cold War production of nuclear weapons into glasslike logs for permanent disposal in a nuclear-waste repository.