The DOE now has a hard deadline to get Hanford’s waste treatment plant up and running.

A U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the Department of Energy needs low-level waste removal to start in 2022, while the pre-treatment facility to separate tank waste into low-level and high-level is required to start by the end of 2031. The treatment needs to be initiated by June 30th, 2032 for all high-level radioactive waste.

The Department of Energy has about six years to being treating the low-level radioactive waste left over from years of plutonium production to build the atomic bomb.

The court released its ruling on Friday.

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