Spokane doesn't want feds to truck nuclear waste through the city

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown first learned through the grapevine about the federal government’s plan to ship radioactive wastes through her city.

Spokane County Commissioner Amber Waldref belongs to the Hanford Advisory Board — a federally funded advisory committee representing state and local governments, labor, tribes, economic interests and environmental groups. At a recent board meeting, Waldref learned that the state of Oregon and the Oregon-located Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation had rejected a plan to ship 2,000 gallons of liquid radioactive wastes from Hanford through northeastern Oregon to Utah and Texas, where the waste would be grouted for permanent storage.

So the federal government is now planning to ship the nuclear waste through Spokane instead, Waldref learned at the meeting and told Brown in September.

“We were very dismayed, especially when we heard about the opposition from Oregon,” Brown said.

https://www.cascadepbs.org/environment/2024/12/spokane-doesnt-want-feds-truck-nuclear-waste-through-city