Hanford

The Trump administration has proposed reclassifying some radioactive waste left from the production of nuclear weapons to make disposal cheaper and easier.

More than 2,000 people submitted comments or signed petitions critical of a proposal for closing Hanford’s underground radioactive waste storage tanks, according to a coalition of environmental and Hanford watchdog groups.

Based on a case brought by whistleblowers, a company that was supposed to provide a functional electronic-medical-records system for Hanford has agreed to pay $389,355 to resolve allegations that it failed to live up to its contract.

More than 500 workers in the center of the Hanford nuclear reservation were ordered to take cover indoors Friday morning after steam was spotted rising from a radioactive waste storage tunnel.

A take cover order that lasted about four hours has been lifted for Hanford nuclear reservation workers.

The Department of Energy has been cleared to immediately begin stabilizing a tunnel containing highly radioactive waste that is at risk of collapse.

State regulators have approved a request by the U.S. Department of Energy to begin work stabilizing a tunnel at Hanford that contains rail cars loaded with radioactive equipment and is similar to the tunnel that collapsed in May 2017.

President Trump signed spending bills Friday that include a budget increase for the Hanford nuclear reservation.

The federal government will try to control, capture and eliminate dangerous vapors coming out of the nuclear waste tanks on the Hanford Reservation as a way to avoid a pending legal battle with Washington. An agreement between the state and the Department of Energy announced Wednesday calls for a series of immediate steps to protect people who work around the tanks and long-term strategies to reduce the vapors.

A settlement agreement has been reached in a 3-year-old lawsuit filed by Washington state to better protect workers from chemical vapors at the Hanford nuclear reservation, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Wednesday.

A final spending bill for next year puts the Hanford nuclear reservation budget at $2.4 billion, well above the amount proposed by the Trump administration.

A wildfire burned an estimated 3,000 acres on the Hanford nuclear reservation early Saturday morning, and a larger fire was burning uncontained on Saddle Mountain.

Hanford needs to do a better job in recording the status of the site’s approximately 12,000 wells that are either decommissioned or in use, according to a new audit report from the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General.

The possible collapse of a second Hanford tunnel storing radioactive waste is both more likely than thought a year ago and the effects potentially more severe, according to Hanford officials.