February 03, 2016

Still No New Head of Washington State Nuclear Waste Program

By ExchangeMonitor

The Washington state Department of Ecology still has not found even an interim replacement for Jane Hedges, who announced in November she would retire in February after nearly a decade as the state’s nuclear waste program manager.

Hedges gave four months notice because she hoped to overlap with and help train her successor, but the state has not appointed anybody to succeed its long-time waste cleanup oversight chief, Hedges said this week.

“We are in the process of doing that,” Hedges said in a presentation to the Hanford Advisory Board in Richland, Wash. “There will be an interim person appointed. That individual hasn’t been appointed yet.”

Once the interim manager is chosen, he or she might serve “a couple months” before a full-timer comes on, Hedges said.

The Hanford Advisory Board provides policy advice to DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, which oversees the highly contaminated Hanford Site near Richland. The board comprises members whose communities are affected by legacy waste cleanup at the site.

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