S-3947.1  _______________________________________________

                    SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 8020

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      56th Legislature     2000 Regular Session

By Senators Loveland, Hale, Roach and B. Sheldon

Read first time 01/18/2000.  Referred to Committee on Energy, Technology & Telecommunications.

Requesting full funding for a vitrification treatment plant at the Hanford site.

    TO THE HONORABLE WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, AND TO THE SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY:

    We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

    WHEREAS, The United States government in the throes and peril of World War II and the following cold war did confiscate and use five hundred sixty square miles of desert on the banks of the Columbia River in Washington State, which came to be known as the Hanford site, to produce plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, which did contribute to bringing both wars to conclusion; and

    WHEREAS, The peace and well-being of the citizens of the United States was furthered for over forty-five years by the work done at the Hanford site; and

    WHEREAS, The Hanford site is now the nation's biggest environmental clean-up project; and

    WHEREAS, Sixty percent of the nation's defense nuclear waste is stored at Hanford in one hundred seventy-seven underground storage tanks, most of which are beyond their design life, and one-third of which have leaked one million gallons to the ground; and

    WHEREAS, The tanks are seven miles south and ten miles west of the Columbia River, the largest river in the Pacific Northwest and a national treasure; and

    WHEREAS, The site is currently in the process of cleaning up the legacy left by the above stated work, which was in the best interests of the American people; and

    WHEREAS, The Hanford site is the only one of the United States Department of Energy sites without a waste treatment facility; and

    WHEREAS, The Department of Energy Office of River Protection was created by Congress in 1998 to manage all aspects of the tank waste remediation project; and

    WHEREAS, Full funding of this environmentally necessary clean-up effort is imperative and overdue;

    NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that, with due respect for other clean-up projects' needs, full funding as necessary to build a vitrification treatment plant, retrieve waste from the tanks, feed waste into said vitrification treatment plant, and dispose of resulting glass logs be forthcoming on schedule to meet the negotiated dates contained in the Tri-Party Agreement between the Washington State Department of Ecology, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Energy.

    BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable William J. Clinton, President of the United States, the Secretary of the Department of Energy, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.

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