State and Top Federal Officials at Odds over Hanford High Level Radioactive Waste

摘要

A top Department of Energy official is fighting what he says are misconceptions about a new policy on which Hanford and other nuclear weapons complex waste must be treated and disposed of to the stringent standards required for high level radioactive waste. The DOE undersecretary for science, Paul Dabbar, said as of now there is no change proposed for waste handled as high level at Hanford. He wanted Maia Bellon, director of the state agency, to hear directly from DOE senior leadership about the policy change, which initially could allow DOE to treat some waste at its Savannah River, S.C., nuclear weapons site as low level rather than high level waste. The meeting went well, he said.