Gregoire may sue feds over Hanford cleanup

WASHINGTON — Nearly 20 years after negotiating the federal cleanup of the Hanford reservation nuclear-waste site, Gov. Christine Gregoire may be on the verge of suing the U.S. government for failing to fund its obligations.

"We're short of options," Gregoire, a Democrat, said in a press briefing Tuesday on Capitol Hill. She said her timetable for deciding is "soon."

Gregoire had just come from meeting with Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman. She said the two had previously agreed that if negotiations on federal funding hit a dead end, she would call him about the next steps, including legal action.

Earlier in the day, she discussed the situation with the state congressional delegation. "We basically agreed to go back to the table one more time," she said.

The president's proposed budget could cut more than $30 million from Hanford's cleanup.

The reduced federal spending could mean there would be only enough money to remove one tank of waste per year, Gregoire said. There are 177 tanks total and only three are empty, said Jay Manning, the state's director of ecology, who accompanied Gregoire.

Contractor Bechtel National has been struggling to design and build a $12.2 billion plant to convert millions of gallons of radioactive waste into glasslike logs for long-term disposal at the south-central Washington site.

The plant isn't expected to be ready until 2019.

Gregoire was the ecology director in 1989 when the state and two federal agencies signed an agreement to clean up Hanford in 30 years.

The state wants to eliminate the source of groundwater contamination under Hanford, she said, and also stop the toxic plume from polluting the Columbia River.

The state likely would win the liability issue in a lawsuit, Manning said, but the fight over the financial remedy could drag out for years.

Gregoire was in D.C. for the annual winter meetings of the National Governors Association. She had hoped that the Pentagon would announce its long-awaited decision regarding the $40 billion Air Force refueling-tanker contract while she was here.

But the announcement was put off for at least another day. Boeing is competing against a partnership of EADS-Airbus and Northrop Grumman. The state could gain thousands of jobs if Boeing succeeds.

"I'm banking on us getting it," Gregoire said.

This report includes material from The Seattle Times archive. Alicia Mundy: 202-662-7457 or amundy@seattletimes.com