Gov. Bob Ferguson didn’t mince words during a Sept. 12 press conference in Kennewick: if the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford site does not begin treating waste by Oct. 15, the state will pursue legal action to bring the facility online and the state will win. 

With two dozen tribal, state and local officials flanking him, the governor said the federal government will be in violation of a long-standing court order if the facility, also called the vitrification or vit plant, does not begin operations as currently scheduled. 

“This is not a new complaint, it’s a violation of a court order,” Ferguson said. “We are very, very confident we would prevail.” 

Outrage builds 

Alarm and rebukes have been swift and fierce since the Sept. 9 media reports and conversation U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said she had with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright about wanting to stall the plant.  

Official word from the DOE office maintains that no changes or strategy has changed and it is committed to an Oct. 15 start date. 

Murray said Wright told her in a Sept. 10 conversation that he wanted to hold back on beginning to process the tens of millions of gallons of toxic waste stored on the Hanford site, reportedly due to an unspecified safety concern.  

Casey Sixkiller, director of the state Department of Ecology – whose own grandfather helped build N Reactor – said there is no evidence of any outstanding safety issues at the vit plant as have been alleged by Wright. 

And Nick Bumpaous, business manager for United Association Local 598 Plumbers & Steamfitters, a union representing many Hanford site workers, said generations of Americans have worked on the project for more than a paycheck.  

He called any allegation of safety issues at the vit plant “ludicrous” and “the flippant notion that DOE turn its back” after decades and tens of billions of dollars invested a disgrace. 

“It is nothing short of a betrayal,” Bumpaous said. 

Nick Bumpaous, business manager for UA Local 598 Pumbers & Steamfitters, spoke at a Sept. 12 press conference in Kennewick along with Gov. Bob Ferguson.

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Photo by Rachel Visick

A demand for answers 

The remarks from the Kennewick press conference are among the latest demand for answers from Wright and the Trump administration about the project’s timeline. 

Twice in public statements in the past week Wright has denied any change of course for the vit plant. In a Sept. 11 statement, he said DOE “has made no changes to our plans or strategy for the Hanford (Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste) waste treatment facility.  Although there are challenges, we are committed to beginning operations by October 15, 2025.” 

Ferguson and others, though, are not taking him at his word. 

“There is zero chance we are backing down on this,” he said. “There is zero chance we will lose.” 

Murray also responded to DOE’s latest statement denying there has been a course correction for the vit plant. 

“I need to see real evidence that this administration is moving forward on our decades-long effort to turn nuclear waste into glass at Hanford,” Murray said in a Sept. 11 statement. 

It has taken decades and cost roughly $30 billion to prepare the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste, or DFLAW, program, which includes the vit plant, for operation. Described in DOE materials as “one of the highest priorities in the DOE Office of Environmental Management portfolio,” the suite of buildings and systems is designed to treat and turn to glass radioactive and toxic waste stored in underground tanks at the Hanford site. 

Roughly 3,000 people are employed in the project. 

The waste is the legacy of the site’s past role in manufacturing nuclear weapons.  

Reports from E&E News by Politico and other media outlets said DOE is considering changes to cleanup operations, including mothballing work on DFLAW, saying that Wright was seeking a “different direction” on cleanup efforts at Hanford. E&E reported that DOE changing direction on the project is related to the agency firing Roger Jarrell, principal deputy assistant secretary of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, who had only been in the job since April. 

Processing the 56 million gallons of waste stored in the site’s deteriorating tanks is a condition of the Holistic Agreement. That document, a deal between Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state Ecology, came from mediated negotiations that started in 2020 following a consent decree issued by a federal judge. The finalized agreement formally went into effect just 10 days before President Donald Trump took office for his second term. 

Casey Sixkiller, director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, spoke at a Sept. 12 press conference in Kennewick along with Gov. Bob Ferguson.

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Photo by Rachel Visick

On track 

The vit plant is on track to meet the set deadlines. An undated letter from Bechtel, the contractor who designed and built the vit plant, to DOE’s Hanford Field Office said other preparations are on schedule so that the first vitrification of waste can occur by Oct. 15. Murray’s office received the letter Sept. 10. 

Sixkiller said air quality reviews of the facility are also on schedule and will be complete by launch. 

And one of DOE’s own Hanford site officials in mid-August affirmed that progress at the facility was continuing. 

Heather Dale, assistant manager for river and plateau with DOE’s Hanford Field Office, told the Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in late August that cold commissioning of the vit plant was proceeding, with hot commissioning starting in the coming months. 

She said that workers have already prepped more than 800,000 gallons of radioactive waste from the site’s storage tanks in anticipation of the start of the next chapter of cleanup at the site.  

Ferguson said the fact that the vit plant is so close to beginning to chip away at the massive amount of waste at Hanford makes Wright’s actions even more confusing. 

“It’s difficult to understand why one would even contemplate this decision,” he said. 

Ferguson said his firm stance on the vit plant is not related to who sits in the White House. When he was the state’s attorney general, his first lawsuit against the federal government regarding Hanford cleanup was against the administration of a fellow Democrat, President Barack Obama. 

He declined to specify when the state will begin to pursue enforcement of the court order, saying the state wants to give DOE the chance to meet its obligations. 

“It’s my hope that someone back there will listen to reason,” he said.