A lawsuit to force the Department of Energy to clean up Hanford is not likely, said Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire on Thursday.

Her comments, made in a telephone call to the Herald, came after progress was made at a high-level negotiating session Wednesday in Seattle to discuss new cleanup deadlines under the legally binding Tri-Party Agreement.

The Department of Energy and its regulators, the state of Washington and the Environmental Protection Agency, produced an outline for an agreement at the meeting, Gregoire said.

Progress on the $12.2 billion vitrification plant being built to treat radioactive waste is central to the agreement, she said. It needs to start operating to begin treating 53 million gallons of waste now held in underground tanks.

"That is the heart and soul of cleanup," she said.

Although the plant is required to begin treating waste in 2011 under the Tri-Party Agreement, DOE has said the full plant may not be operating until 2018.

The state had been considering legal action, including a lawsuit, as it became clear that DOE could not meet deadlines required by the Tri-Party Agreement and negotiations appeared to be making little progress.

But at a meeting with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman in late February, Gregoire agreed to go back to the negotiating table a final time. Negotiations began in May.

Bodman has taken a personal interest in getting an agreement in place before he leaves office and a new energy secretary is appointed by the new president, Gregoire said.

Bodman personally contacted the Justice Department to ensure the administration can sign a consent decree that stipulates conditions in a renegotiated Tri-Party Agreement and avoid a lawsuit, Gregoire said.

The outline for an agreement likely will take a couple of months to complete. More details could be available to the public as soon as the end of May, said Jane Hedges, nuclear waste program manager for the state, at the Hanford Advisory Board meeting Thursday in Portland.

In addition to the governor, the energy secretary and EPA officials also must agree to the proposal worked on Wednesday in Seattle. Ins Triay, DOE's principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management; Jay Manning, director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, and Dan Opalski, director of EPA's Region 10 Office of Environmental Cleanup, were the top officials at the negotiations.

Hedges, who was at the negotiations, characterized them as "constructive and positive." Public comment will be accepted before any major changes negotiated to the Tri-Party Agreement are finalized.