Ecology Rejects Hanford Deadline Extension Request

Sat., Feb. 14, 1998

Associated Press

The state Department of Ecology has rejected a U.S. Energy Department request for a six-month extension on the deadline for pumping radioactive waste out of six underground tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

Ecology officials are considering what action to take against the federal agency for missing the Sept. 30 deadline, said Tom Fitzsimmons, director of the state agency.

He said Thursday he expects to receive a staff recommendation in about a month. Energy Department spokeswoman Karen Randolph was in an all-day meeting Friday and did not immediately return a telephone message to her office here.

The missed deadline was part of a pact called the Tri-Party Agreement - involving the Energy Department, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Ecology - that governs Hanford’s cleanup. Signed in May 1989, it set a 30-year deadline for cleaning up Hanford.

DOE sought to extend the deadline to March 31, and possibly later.

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