In a Sunday editorial, the Tri-City Herald newspaper in Richland, Wash., blasted the Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 request that would cut by more than $390-million the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup budget for the Hanford Site.
While Hanford would still receive around $2.9 billion, more than a third of the budget for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, the reduced funding for the 324 building is “particularly troubling,” the newspaper said in its editorial.
The Hanford request “reflects a temporary hold on the 324 Bldg. deactivation activities with follow-on activities scheduled for a future date,” according to the DOE fiscal 2027 justification document.
The spill of cesium and strontium beneath the building could be lethal to humans in the event of direct contact, the newspaper said.
Since 2023, DOE and its cleanup contractor have been studying ways to best remediate the radioactively contaminated soil in Cell B underneath the 324 Building. The 324 Building, used until 1996 for research into highly-radioactive materials, is in a “safe and secure” condition, according to DOE.
“White House budgets are not binding,” the newspaper said in the editorial. “Congress is responsible for writing the actual budget, but the president’s proposals serve as an important policy document.”
“The federal government came to the Tri-Cities more than 80 years ago with a secret project to win World War 2,” the newspaper said. “It commandeered farmland and built the Hanford Site. The site continued producing material [plutonium] for nuclear weapons for decades. The toxic legacy of that work remains there and will require decades more to clean up.”