"New Plan Would Add Oversight But Delay Hanford Nuclear Cleanup"

"Cleanup of the nation's biggest nuclear mess would take nearly two decades longer than planned under an agreement endorsed Tuesday by the governors of Washington and Oregon.

The new agreement governing tank waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation would boost court and state oversight of what state officials call the most technically challenging and expensive cleanup in U.S. history.

But it would extend by 19 years the final treatment deadline for 53 million gallons of radioactive sludge, some of which is already leaking from single-wall tanks, from 2028 to 2047. By then, many of Hanford's 11,000 workers will be retirees."

Scott Learn reports for the Portland Oregonian August 11, 2009.