Federal Judge Sets New Deadlines for Hanford Cleanup

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A federal judge has set new deadlines for cleaning up nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, after Washington state went to court to prod the U.S. Department of Energy over the flagging efforts.

U.S. District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson issued the new deadlines in a 102-page order late Friday. Among them: A plant designed to treat low-activity radioactive waste must begin operating by 2022, and a plant to convert the most dangerous waste into glass for burial must be fully operating by 2036.

Washington and Oregon sued the Energy Department nearly a decade ago over missed cleanup deadlines, and after a settlement, Washington went back to court in 2014, leading to the judge's order Friday.

Peterson criticized the Energy Department for what she described as a "total lack of transparency" as to the delays. She said that if the department had kept the states better apprised of the status of the cleanup efforts, the states could have sought further funding from Congress to help avert delays.