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Hanford Whistleblower Moving On With Life After Settling For $4.1 Million

Walter Tamosaitis says he's looking forward to working on his old Model A car, maybe acting as a consultant and giving talks now that he's wrapped up a settlement for $4.1 million.
Anna King
/
Northwest News Network
Walter Tamosaitis says he's looking forward to working on his old Model A car, maybe acting as a consultant and giving talks now that he's wrapped up a settlement for $4.1 million.

A Hanford nuclear site whistleblower says he’s ready to get back to work. He settled his legal battle Wednesday for $4.1million.

Tamosaitis was one of the top managers building one of the most complex radioactive waste treatment plants in the world at Hanford. But when he raised serious safety concerns, he was escorted out of the building. He was then assigned to a basement office -- sharing it with a copy machine.

Among Tamosaitis’s main concerns was large mixing vessels might not stir up the radioactive waste well enough and could cause an explosion. He also felt that the federal government and its contractors were suppressing a healthy safety culture.

Tamosaitis said he’s relieved to move on.

“I really feel that I have a lot of energy left, I can make a lot of contributions and I’m hopeful that there’s an ethical company out there that might want a good manager,” he said.

The federal contractor AECOM said in a statement that quote: “The company [AECOM] strongly disagrees that it retaliated against him [Walter Tamosaitis] in any manner.”

Copyright 2015 Northwest News Network

Anna King
Anna King calls Richland, Washington home and loves unearthing great stories about people in the Northwest. She reports for the Northwest News Network from a studio at Washington State University, Tri-Cities. She covers the Mid-Columbia region, from nuclear reactors to Mexican rodeos.