Years ago, a Russian official visiting the Tri-Cities was stunned to learn that a cutting-edge nuclear facility on the Hanford site had never been used.

The Fuels and Materials Examination Facility, or FMEF, built in the late 1980s to support development of liquid-sodium cooled reactors, sat idle for decades – a symbol, local leaders say, of missed opportunity in a region built on nuclear innovation.

When local leaders arranged a visit, the Russian couldn’t believe it.

“He was just aghast that the country built a facility with these capabilities and never used it,” said David Reeploeg, vice president of federal programs for the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC).

Now, that may be changing. Facilities at Hanford and elsewhere on and near the Hanford site are being eyed for a new generation of nuclear projects, part of a broader push to revive the Tri-Cities’ role in the industry.

“The political winds are shifting,” said Chuck Torelli, a retired Hanford site worker, Kennewick City Council member and nominated member of the Hanford Advisory Board.

But that momentum is running into familiar resistance, as regulators, tribes and environmental groups argue cleanup of the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site must remain the priority.

“As previously stated, the (Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, or CTUIR) advocates for cleanup of the Hanford site, for preservation of First Foods and cultural resources, and safe access to those First Foods on CTUIR’s ceded lands, including at the Hanford site,” according to a statement from the CTUIR provided to the Journal. “Any diversion of funds away from cleanup, regardless of actual amounts, is not aligned with CTUIR’s interests or DOE’s federal trust responsibility if it does not support the cleanup effort.”

Federal fast-tracking

The federal government for years has slowly advanced nuclear energy as part of the solution to the nation’s domestic energy needs. However, the Trump administration has thrown that effort into overdrive – announcing billions of dollars in federal investment into research and development of small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, and building the supply chain for high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU.

It’s also sought to establish nuclear innovation campuses around the country that would serve as hubs for the nuclear energy supply chain, from manufacturing to waste storage. States would receive federal investments as a condition of hosting a campus and working to streamline and accelerate nuclear development by curtailing government review and community engagement.

And there’s been symbolic moves, too. Tim Walsh, assistant director over of the U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE, Office of Environmental Management, announced at the Waste Management Symposium in Phoenix, Arizona, in March that his office was changing its name to “The Office of Nuclear Restoration and Revitalization.” The name remained unchanged on DOE’s official government webpages as of April 1.

The Tri-Cities has already been the beneficiary of some of that federal largesse. The Richland fuel manufacturing facility of France-based Framatome has received federal contracts to facilitate HALEU production and partnered with other companies to support new nuclear projects that have received federal funding and resources.

Most recently, DOE announced it would lease the FMEF to nuclear company General Matter to support development of new nuclear technologies and materials. The company a year ago, under an alias, began pursuing a land deal with the city of Richland to develop additional facilities.

That’s on top of other nuclear-related ventures in the region, such as Energy Northwest’s partnership with X-energy and Amazon to build SMRs near the Columbia Generating Station and Avalanche Energy’s FusionWERX fusion energy technology development efforts at the Port of Benton.

Push for projects

Reeploeg said TRIDEC was “over the moon” about DOE leasing the FMEF to General Matter. It opens the door to other nuclear-related companies to have operations there, as the facility is likely too large for General Matter to use on its own, and, perhaps more importantly, bolsters TRIDEC’s efforts to advance a vision for new nuclear in the Tri-Cities.

“We’ve taken 30 groups on tours of that facility toward this goal,” he said. “We’ve been actively trying to pursue this arrangement.”

The recent federal push for more nuclear prompted state Reps. Stephanie Barnard and Mark Klicker, of Pasco and Walla Walla, respectively, to promote legislation in the short 2026 legislative session to task state officials to make a competitive bid for one of the nuclear innovation campuses as part of the Trump administration's bid to unleash America's nuclear renaissance. The bill, House Joint Memorial 4016, never made it out of committee.

“This is a race, and Washington needs to get in the running,” Barnard said in a statement. “We have the most talented nuclear workforce in the country right in our backyard. But talent follows opportunity. If we don’t signal that we are open for business and ready to host these advanced facilities, that investment and those jobs will go to states that are hungrier for them.”

Torelli and Karl Dye, TRIDEC’s president and CEO, said the Tri-Cities has diversified beyond being a nuclear company town. However, its generations of experience gives it a unique role to play as nuclear energy is advanced as a means toward energy independence for the U.S. and a carbon-free future. And it could also support other industries, such as the development of data centers.

“Nuclear will always be our base and our heritage, but there will be other opportunities outside of that,” Dye said. “This can diversify our economy even more.”

Continued concerns

Not everyone is ready to embrace new nuclear.

The Washington Department of Ecology, one of the key agencies overseeing cleanup at the Hanford site, said it has no oversight of FMEF as it hasn’t been used and thus isn’t part of the cleanup efforts.

“However, the U.S. Department of Energy and General Matter will be required to meet all applicable state regulatory requirements for any new activities conducted at the facility,” spokesman Ryan Miller said in a statement.

Ferguson has kept his distance from the conversation around nuclear, or at least sought to keep the public’s knowledge of his engagement with it off the radar. In October, the National Governors Association held a two-day summit on nuclear policy in Olympia with participation from the state Department of Commerce. However, no one at the state level nor with the association permitted media access nor would comment on specifics of the event, according to the Washington State Standard.

"The state is not necessarily receptive to nuclear power but they're getting better," state Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick, told the Journal.

CTUIR officials are among the most critical of any efforts to create new nuclear missions at the Hanford site, especially without them being consulted beforehand to address potential impacts to their ancestral lands, people and cultural resources. They assert that cleanup should remain the primary goal at the site.

“Restarting the unused facility will divert money and resources that should be geared towards cleaning up Hanford, which is the most contaminated site in the nation,” the Tribes said in a statement.

A similar concern is what recently led the state of New Mexico to penalize the federal government for continually missing deadlines for the cleanup of legacy nuclear and hazardous waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In addition to demanding it expedite cleanup at the laboratory, the New Mexico Environment Department will fine DOE $16 million for violating groundwater safety requirements, according to a release.

The lab, which is where the atomic bomb was born, still has the equivalent of 200 Olympic swimming pools of legacy waste to clean up. The state is also where much of the nation’s nuclear waste, including some of Hanford’s, is destined for long-term storage at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

Yet Los Alamos continues to produce plutonium bomb cores and is part of a $1.7 trillion federal effort to modernize the nation’s weapons arsenal, as reported by the New York Times. That means it is creating new waste while the cleanup proceeds slowly and faces funding cuts.

“New Mexicans have stepped up to help solve the nation’s cleanup problem in a way that residents of no other state have,” said James Kenney, New Mexico’s environment secretary, in a statement. “The U.S. Department of Energy must prioritize their health and welfare by expediting cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory and ensuring there’s space for New Mexico’s legacy waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.”

Work to do

Tri-City officials said cleanup at Hanford must proceed and remain the priority. However, they appreciate DOE’s intent to position existing facilities for productive reuse and a warming attitude from Washington officials.

“Ecology used to be adversarial, but we’ve started building those bridges, and we see ourselves as partners and not adversaries,” Torelli said.

But they also acknowledge that there’s a lot of work to do to alleviate concerns and convince others around the state that nuclear energy has the potential to meet multiple goals on both sides of the political aisle.

“All that can eventually influence the new nuclear conversation,” Dye said. “All these things are interrelated.”