Our mission

To create a future for the Hanford nuclear site that secures human health and safety, advances accountability, and promotes a sustainable environmental legacy.

What we do

Hanford Challenge is a nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Seattle, WA. We receive most of our funding from grants, foundations, and people like you who care about a safe and effective cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Site.

We work every day to reduce the risks posed by the Hanford Nuclear Site to the Pacific Northwest--mainly the accidental release of deadly radioactive waste and contaminants into the environment. Hanford Challenge serves the 9,000 people who are working to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Site, their families, U.S. taxpayers, future generations, and environment.

The foundation for our work at Hanford Challenge is the relationships we have with the women and men working to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Site. They uncover waste and fraud, reveal unacceptable risks to health and safety, and report violations of laws and regulations. Whenever they step forward to do so, it is at great risk to their jobs and careers. The legal team at Hanford Challenge provides representation and advocacy to protect them from the retaliation that often occurs when people make protected disclosures.

We share information workers provide with Congress, state and local governments, and the media. We often act as translators and guides of complex issues into plain language and action plans to help the public understand what is really going on at Hanford. We maintain constant vigilance and oversight to stop attempts to evade regulations designed to protect health, safety, and the environment. And we intervene whenever the federal government proposes approaches Hanford that would undermine the safety and effectiveness of the cleanup program.

We have a large and growing strategic networks of unions, Tribes, environmental organizations, community groups, public officials, and concerned individuals who are committed to a safe cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Site. These relationships enable Hanford Challenge to mobilize support and organize action to persuade policymakers to hold the government and its contractors accountable for the quality and safety of the cleanup program.

By publicizing incidents at Hanford that would have otherwise been kept quiet and by exposing waste, fraud, and safety violations, Hanford Challenge has consistently pushed for greater accountability, transparency, and reform at the Hanford Nuclear Site. Our work has improved safety at Hanford, prevented waste and fraud, improved cleanup efforts, saved millions of taxpayer dollars, and heightened public awareness of the many issues that plague the cleanup work and continue threaten safety and the environment.

Ongoing vigilance is essential. No other organization has the knowledge, experience, or relationships to work for a safer, cleaner future at the Hanford Nuclear Site.