How much do hazardous materials removal workers make in Washington in 2026?

Hazardous materials removal workers in Washington earn a median $60,160 per year, which works out to $28.92 per hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That's a solid middle-of-the-road number, but the range tells a more complete story — and in this trade, where you work and how long you've been at it can push your pay significantly higher.

The bottom quarter of earners in Washington come in at $49,010 annually, or about $23.56 per hour. Workers at this level are often newer to the trade, working entry-level removal roles, or employed in lower-demand geographic pockets of the state. Even at the low end, this pay is above minimum wage and reflects the specialized training and certification requirements the work demands.

The top quarter of hazmat removal workers in Washington earn $78,990 per year or more — roughly $37.98 per hour. Getting into that upper tier generally means accumulating years of field experience, holding multiple certifications such as OSHA 40-hour HAZWOPER, lead and asbestos abatement licenses, or nuclear and radiological removal credentials. Supervisory roles and project foreman positions also tend to cluster in this pay band.

The spread between the 25th and 75th percentile — nearly $30,000 a year — is wide for a single trade in a single state. That gap exists because hazmat removal isn't one job; it's a family of specialties. Asbestos abatement on a commercial reroofing job pays differently than decontaminating a Superfund site or handling radioactive materials at a federal installation. Washington has a meaningful federal presence, including Department of Energy operations in the Tri-Cities area around the Hanford Site, which is one of the largest nuclear cleanup projects in the country. Workers qualified for that kind of work routinely land at or above the 75th percentile.

Location matters inside the state as well. The Puget Sound metro — Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, and surrounding King and Pierce County areas — tends to generate consistent demand from commercial demolition, remediation of older industrial buildings, and large-scale construction projects that uncover legacy contamination. Workers based there generally have more consistent year-round work than those in rural counties, which can reduce downtime and push effective annual earnings higher.

Certification stacking is one of the clearest ways to move up the pay scale in this trade. A worker who holds both asbestos abatement and lead abatement certifications is more valuable to a contractor than one who holds only one. Add a confined space entry certification or a CDL for hauling hazardous waste, and you become harder to replace on a job site — which gives you more leverage at the negotiating table.

Overtime is common in this trade, particularly on remediation projects with hard regulatory deadlines. Workers at the median rate of $28.92 per hour earn $43.38 for every overtime hour. A worker putting in 10 hours of overtime per week over a six-month active season adds roughly $11,300 to their annual base — a number that can push a median earner's real take-home well past the 75th percentile threshold.

The data on this page comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, May 2025. No union scale was available for this trade and state at time of publication. If your local has a collective bargaining agreement with posted scale rates, your floor may be higher than what's shown here — check your local union hall for current wage tables.

All figures on TradesPays are presented for Washington state as a whole. Individual employers, project types, and union affiliations will produce results that differ from these benchmarks. Use these numbers as a starting point when evaluating a job offer or negotiating a raise, not as a guarantee of what any one position pays.