Oregon Public Broadcasting

Keeping Hanford’s radioactive waste out of the Columbia River is the aim of a new plan unveiled by Washington State and federal officials Friday.

The plan gives the federal government permission to delay certain cleanup projects.

Instead, it focuses more money on cleaning up the nuclear site’s river corridor and controlling vast plumes of contaminated groundwater in Central Hanford. Correspondent Anna King reports.

Officials say the tentative plan focuses on what’s most important at Hanford right now.

There are vast waste dumps of radioactive garbage to clean up, but first officials want to get at the stuff like chromium that’s leaking into the Columbia River right now.

Matt McCormick: “We’d like to do it all, but sometimes we have to choose in terms of what comes first because of constraints or technical issues.”

That’s Matt McCormick with the federal Department of Energy -- the agency that manages Hanford. He says under the new plan, ground water contaminated by chromium would be brought under control by 2012 and be cleaned up by 2020.

The proposal still has to go out for public comment.

This plan is separate from a lawsuit against the federal government by the State of Washington.