Supporters of Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility were rushing to pull together the paperwork to ask a federal judge to halt shutdown work at the reactor Tuesday.

Benton County and the city of Richland plan to file a lawsuit Thursday in Spokane or Richland, whichever federal court has a judge available to hear its arguments in the hours remaining before a critical phase of the shutdown begins.

Work starts Monday to drain sodium from the reactor's secondary loops.

Without an injunction to stop the drain, the next task for supporters is "to hold a very sad party," said Claude Oliver, president of Citizens for Medical Isotopes and a Benton County commissioner.

"With sodium drained, it reaches a crossroads that many technical engineers are not willing to certify it" as safe to operate again, he said.

County commissioners are expected today to remove a requirement that the citizens group be co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit to prevent claims of conflict of interest stemming from Oliver's dual roles.

The suit is planned to send a message to Washington, D.C., and give supporters more time to convince federal officials that the reactor has valuable roles to play in saving cancer patients and supporting the president's energy policy.

Doctors cannot get reliable supplies of some types of medical isotopes to research promising new ways of treating disease, including cancer, say supporters of the reactor.

They also believe that as new medicines using radioactive isotopes come to market, pharmaceutical companies will have trouble buying the isotopes they need. Now most medical isotopes are imported from other countries.

FFTF also is the only U.S. reactor capable of the advanced nuclear testing that will be needed if new reactors are developed to generate energy, as called for in the federal energy policy, Oliver said.

"And we're going to find energy independence?" he asked.

If the citizens group gets an injunction to stop the sodium drain, supporters plan to continue discussing the nation's nuclear medical needs with Health and Human Services and financial issues with the Office of Management and Budget.

The Department of Energy has made clear that it has no use for the reactor and wants it permanently shut down. However, a coalition of Mid-Columbia governments is asking that it be declared surplus and operated privately. Money from the private operation would be set aside to eventually shut down the reactor permanently, sparing taxpayers the cost.