The Hanford reservation in line for a $400 million budget cut

Back in 1943, The Hanford Nuclear Reservation was created as part of America's World War 2 effort. They stopped making weapons grade plutonium in 1987. In 1989 Washington state entered into an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) To find a way to deal with the massive amount of chemical and radioactive contamination at the site. 

Over 36 years now multiple contractors have been hired and then fired with the job of cleaning up the site and decommissioning reactors. The amount of money that's been spent on this cleanup over the years has been astronomical, but now, budget cuts are coming. 

According to seattletimes.com,
‘The Trump administration is proposing a cut to the Hanford nuclear site budget of about $400 million, delaying some environmental cleanup projects. 
On Friday, the Trump administration released a top-line budget request for the Department of Energy for fiscal year 2027, and the department also released a more detailed request. 
The department’s document listed the current budget for Hanford at a record $3.3 billion.’ 

When you look at the total annual budget for running the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and continuing cleanup work, 400 million seems small, But that 400 million is being removed from key projects affecting water contamination. 

Where are the cuts?

$228 million is being cut from The Office of River Protection. That office is responsible for 56,000,000 gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste currently stored in underground tanks that are notorious for leaking. That office is also responsible for the treatment of that waste so that it can be permanently disposed of. 

Other environmental cleanup work is the responsibility of the Hanford Richland Operations Office. They are scheduled for a budget decrease of $166 million. Again, this is just a small fraction of the $1 billion that they are allocated, but the money is significant because it slows progress on the entire project. 

Call me old fashioned. It seems to me that we should be a little more concerned about the possibility of highly radioactive cesium and strontium dribbling into the Columbia River through Potential cracks in the containment. 

I'm not a nuclear engineer. (Although my older brother is) 
It just seems to me that budget cuts on this project might not be the best option.