The federal government is unenthusiastic about cranking up its biggest cleanup project next month at the Hanford nuclear site in south-central Washington. But it will meet an Oct. 15 deadline to bring the so-called glassification facility online, the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday.

Whether the department may move later to shut down the facility, which will be used to turn radioactive waste into glass, is still hazy.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., talked with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday about earlier reports the Department of Energy wanted to back out of firing up the long-delayed Hanford plant by Oct. 15 and go to an undefined alternate method to neutralize 56 million gallons of radioactive waste.

That waste is stored in 177 leak-prone underground tanks in the

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