The U.S. Department of Energy will hold a public hearing in Portland today on whether the Hanford Nuclear Reservation should be designated a repository for highly radioactive waste from around the country.
The material — an estimated 12,600 trucks full over 60 years — likely would be trucked through populated areas, including Portland and Spokane, as well as through the Columbia River Gorge. It would be buried at the site near Richland.
Hanford is one of six sites being studied for storage of the waste, which would include contaminated metal from decommissioned nuclear power plants.
The Energy Department withdrew an earlier proposal to ship high-level waste from nuclear power plants to Hanford, but the advocacy group Heart of America Northwest says the new proposal could still expose members of the public along the truck routes to an elevated risk of cancer.
The hearing will be from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Double Tree Hotel, 1000 N.E. Multnomah St., near Lloyd Center.
