Toxic Free Future In The News

OLYMPIA—Measures to clarify Heart of America's Hanford cleanup initiative may quickly become the subject of a partisan fight in the Legislature over the merits of the initiative itself.

If you lived next to a toxic waste dump that had polluted your community for over 50 years, and if the entities that ran the dump broke promise after promise to clean it up, would you think it would be a good idea to double the amount of toxic waste that was stored there? Of course you wouldn’t. You would think that dump should be cleaned up properly and safely before any more waste could be stored there because ever since we were old enough to understand, we have all been taught by our parents that we are responsible for cleaning up the messes we make.

Mercury is turning up in fish in Washington state's remote lakes and reservoirs at levels that could be harmful to women and children, and more than half the fish tested nationwide also are contaminated, according to a study by an environmental coalition.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Friday turned aside by the narrowest of margins a proposed amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell and agreed to allow the Department of Energy to reclassify highly radioactive wastes in an effort to cut costs and speed cleanup at its nuclear sites.

WASHINGTON -- A South Carolina senator, working in concert with senior Energy Department officials, has quietly proposed changing federal law to allow lethal waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and other nuclear weapons plants to remain in underground tanks rather than being removed and sent to a more secure disposal site.