SPOKANE, WA – As radioactive waste heads to Spokane, Mayor Lisa Brown sent a letter to the federal government on Thursday voicing opposition amid environmental safety concerns.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently transported 2,000 gallons of low-activity waste from the Hanford Site in Benton County to Texas and Utah for disposal. Brown learned in September that the route would go through Spokane, warning residents that if successful, millions could follow.
DOE officials initially planned to ship the liquid waste through Oregon but changed plans after it faced opposition. Oregon wanted the agency to solidify the waste before transporting it due to environmental and public safety concerns, but DOE waited until after it got to Texas and Utah.
“Transporting untreated liquid waste through the heart of Spokane poses serious risks to our residents, roads, and river,” Brown wrote in a news release. “Spokane should not be put in danger for the sake of convenience or cost-saving measures.”
According to a news release, two facilities are now solidifying the 2,000 gallons of waste in Utah and Texas before disposing of it. The Hanford Site generated almost 56 million gallons during World War 2 and the Cold War, which is now stored in underground tanks awaiting disposal.
Hanford treated the 2,000 gallons of waste before it left Washington, removing “99.99% of the radioactive cesium and other radionuclides.” DOE made an initial three-gallon test trip in 2017 and has completed more than 184,000 radioactive waste and materials shipments since 2004.
Spokane Communications Manager Erin Hut told The Center Square that DOE hasn’t contacted the city since the last transport but communicated before the shipment. She said they shipped the waste from Hanford, up U.S. Route 395 to I-90 into Idaho before heading south to Utah and Texas.
“If this material must be moved, it should be grouted and stabilized before coming close to our city,” Brown wrote the release.
The Center Square contacted DOE for comment but did not receive anything before publishing.
The mayor wants real-time shipment tracking if waste flows through Spokane but requested that DOE evaluate alternative routes. Brown also asked the department to delay final route approval until it addresses the city’s concerns and publishes a worst-case scenario analysis.
Spokane County Commissioner Amber Waldref, who also sits on the Hanford Advisory Board, told The Center Square that future transports could be years away. Still, she’s concerned about how much DOE might ship at any one time if something goes wrong.
Like Oregon, she wants the waste solidified before transport, but Waldref said DOE doesn’t do much outreach with the board. She said the next step would be to contact Gov. Bob Ferguson about DOE completing a supplemental environmental impact study if it wishes to continue.
DOE officials told The Center Square last September that it did an environmental assessment and issued a finding of no significant impact in March 2023, so it doesn’t need to complete another.
“I’m very much in favor of removing waste from Hanford because it is the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere. It has a lot of waste, and a lot of it will remain there,” Waldref said. “but they’re basically saying, ‘We’ve already analyzed this; we don’t need to do anymore.’”
