Gov. Inslee ‘extremely concerned’ about Hanford mishap

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says the state plans to issue an order requiring the federal government to determine the cause of a tunnel collapse at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The order would also require the Department of Energy to assess if there’s an immediate risk of failures in any other tunnels and take action to safely store waste in the tunnels until a decision is made about how to permanently handle the material.

Inslee says this is a situation to stay on top of.

“We’ve always known we have great challenges in Hanford,” he said. “The efforts to provide a long-term storage of slug and liquid waste is a tremendous challenge.”

A portion of a tunnel containing buried rail cars full of radioactive waste collapsed Tuesday at a sprawling storage facility in a remote area of Washington state, forcing an evacuation of some workers at the site that made plutonium for nuclear weapons for decades after World War II.

Officials detected no release of radiation and no workers were injured, according to Randy Bradbury, a spokesperson for the Washington state Department of Ecology.

It was the kind of incident that makes Inslee nervous.

“I am extremely concerned about what happened and how the Department of Energy can give us confidence that this will not happen again.”

He says we dodged a bullet.

“We are very glad there were no injuries,” Inslee added. “It appears the situation has largely stabilized.”

Officials will continue to monitor the site.

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