Letter: Accountability needed for Hanford cleanup money

Plenty of U.S. taxpayers, including myself, would like to take vigorous but respectful exception to our two spendthrift politicians, Murray and Cantwell, in their statements lately to DOE head Rick Perry that “you can’t do the Hanford cleanup on the cheap.”

Good heavens you silly politicians, there has been nothing about the Hanford cleanup that has been, or will ever be cheap, from day #1. The taxpayer dollars wasted, squandered or misused due to red tape, contractors coming and going, unreasonable rules and criteria, and federal regulatory bureaucracy are absolutely staggering.

The current estimate for finishing the cleanup is $110 billion, and sadly there has been from $2-3 billion per year spent for the past 25 years. Sadly, much of what has been done thus far is the easy part. The hard part, the leaky underground tanks that are the biggest threat to the river and groundwater and everything downstream, still remain virtually untouched.

All Secretary Perry and some other more fiscally responsible elected leaders are trying to do is to have an affordable, sustainable budget and some accountability connected to it; something the Hanford cleanup hasn’t had in a long time.

This story was originally published July 4, 2017 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Letter: Accountability needed for Hanford cleanup money."