More than a dozen Department of Energy workers were fired this month at a Central Washington nuclear cleanup site, with at least 30 more federal workers taking buyouts, the latest in President Donald Trump and “special government employee” Elon Musk’s quest to slash the federal workforce.

Layoffs at the Hanford site near Richland included safety engineers, environmental scientists and employees who protect workers’ rights, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in a news release Friday.

“These reckless firings will slow down critical cleanup work and make workers less safe — trying to run Hanford with a skeleton crew is a recipe for disaster that could have irreversible impacts,” Murray said.

The Hanford site was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for nuclear weapons, leading to major contamination. Federal employees at the site are responsible for negotiating with regulators to make sure environmental cleanup work is completed and […]