Attorney General’s Office celebrates historic milestone in Hanford nuclear cleanup

It’s just glass, but its production changes everything for nuclear waste cleanup in Washington state.

After decades of work by governors, lawmakers, attorneys general, and the Tri-Cities community to hold the federal government accountable, the U.S. Department of Energy is now converting radioactive waste left at the Hanford nuclear reservation into a stabilized substance that will no longer threaten the health of residents or Washington’s natural resources.

Through court actions and negotiations, the Attorney General’s Office over the decades has played a central role in keeping the U.S. Department of Energy accountable for its obligation to cleanup Hanford. The waste treatment that began last week came 16 years after its original starting deadline, and the state might still have been waiting if not for generations of state elected leaders in Olympia and in Congress insisting on seeing the job done.

“This moment would not have been possible without many leaders in Washington state history, both Democrat and Republican, working to ensure the federal government honored its obligations to the people of Washington,” said Attorney General Nick Brown. “Even weeks before vitrification began, we were still fighting to make sure the federal government proceeded with this process. This milestone begins a new era for the Tri-Cities and Washington state as a whole.”

The office’s first milestone came in 1989, when Attorney General Ken Eikenberry worked with then-Ecology Director Christine Gregoire to negotiate the initial Tri-Party Agreement between the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the state Department of Ecology. As attorney general, Gregoire continued negotiating outcomes under the agreement to develop treatment facilities for safe waste disposal.

Beginning in 2006, when it became apparent the federal government would miss its 2011 deadline for opening the plant, Attorney General Rob McKenna’s team represented Ecology in discussions with Energy and the Department of Justice. The state eventually sued, and the team negotiated a consent decree with the federal government dictating progress on three main components of the treatment plant.

When new federal delays meant a return to the negotiating table under Attorney General Bob Ferguson, his team went back to court to preserve the settlement with enforceable benchmarks for progress on the waste facilities. From 2020 to 2024, the office negotiated on Ecology’s behalf when projections signaled the pre-treatment facility wouldn’t be completed as envisioned. After more than 100 mediation sessions, the state reached an agreement that ensured vitrification – the process of turning radioactive and hazardous waste into glass – would begin in 2025.

In September, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, who for years has been instrumental in supporting Hanford cleanup, raised the alarm that the Trump administration was planning to abandon the plans just a month before waste treatment began. AG Brown’s team supported Ecology and the governor’s office in preparing to enforce the consent decree, but the Department of Energy ultimately stuck with honoring the agreement.

It took a long time to get here, yet it’s just the beginning of cleaning up the most dangerous legacy waste from nuclear weapons production in Washington. The plant will continue ramping up operations in the months to come, and the vitrification of the most hazardous radioactive waste is slated to begin in 2033.

Treating all of Hanford’s tank waste will take decades and additional significant commitments from the federal government. Future generations of Attorney General’s Office staff will help see that work is done on behalf of Washingtonians.

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