Ecology employee named new director

On Monday, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire named Ted Sturdevant the new director of the Department of Ecology. Sturdevant replaces Jay Manning, who recently became Gregoire's chief of staff. For the past seven years, Sturdevant worked at Ecology as the director of governmental relations.

Ecology is one of the three signatory parties in the Tri-Party Agreement (aka Hanford Clean-Up Agreement), and serves as a regulator for the clean-up activities at the Hanford site. Sturdevant stated that Hanford is on the short list of priorities for Ecology. Heart of America NW hopes he sticks to that statement. It comes at a time when the State of WA is agreeing to 22 years of dealys in emptying the High-Level Nuclear Waste from Hanford's leaky single shell tanks. Over 100 square miles of groundwater at Hanford are already contaminated, and delays to emptying the tank wastes are compounded into delays in cleaning up the surrounding contamination.

You can still comment on this settlement by emailing your comments to TPACH@rl.gov, or attending the public hearing in Seattle tomorrow evening. The hearing is at 7pm at the Quality Inn (618 John St, near Seattle Center), and Heart of America NW will lead a pre-meeting workshop at 6pm. We hope to see you there!