Tri-City Herald
Jan. 3, 2004
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/4576667p-4548377c.html

Hanford cleanup advocates gather 282,000 signatures

By Chris Mulick Herald Olympia bureau

OLYMPIA -- A team of environmental groups submitted the last of
282,000 signatures Friday for an initiative to the Legislature they
ultimately hope will make Hanford cleanup a prominent election-year
issue this fall.

Initiative 297 seeks to prevent the state from granting permits to
build new trenches and waste facilities to store various nuclear
wastes from other states at Hanford until Hanford's own wastes are
treated and cleaned up. Backers believe it would give the state a new
legal tool to enforce Hanford cleanup.

The federal government plans to send an assortment of transuranic,
low-level and mixed wastes to Hanford for temporary or permanent
storage. Though the government has not quantified how much, I-297
supporters are claiming it would amount to more than 70,000
truckloads.

Those truckloads amount to "rolling dirty bombs which are terrorist
targets," said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America
Northwest and frontman for the initiative.

The measure needs 197,734 valid signatures and would require the
Legislature to either approve it or put it on the November ballot.
Supporters expect lawmakers will send it to a vote.

"It's a strong message we think is going to be very popular with the
voters," said Robert Pregulman, director of the Washington Public
Interest Research Group.

Reaction was hard to come by Friday, with political offices largely
deserted for a long holiday weekend. But critics of the measure said
it's not needed to enforce cleanup and that such decisions should be
made by the state and federal governments.

Supporters say they'll use it to attack President Bush as well as
Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi and Republican George
Nethercutt, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., for
her seat. Pollet said Rossi and Nethercutt refused to sign on to the
initiative.

"I'm somewhat embarrassed some of our legislators have not endorsed
this," said state Sen. Adam Kline, a Seattle Democrat who argued the
measure would boost the Tri-City economy.

The measure, helped by the use of paid signature gatherers, is being
endorsed by several environmental and Democratic party organizations,
including the state Democratic Party, the Yakama Nation and the
League of Women Voters. U.S. Reps. Jim McDermott and Adam Smith, both
Democrats, and Democratic gubernatorial candidates Ron Sims and Phil
Talmadge have signed on. So have four Seattle City Council members.