6 tanks at Hanford nuclear site in Wash. leaking

Workers demolish a decommissioned nuclear reactor during the cleanup operations at the Western hemisphere's most contaminated nuclear site in Hanford, Washington state on March 21, 2011. / MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images

Updated 10:52 PM ET

YAKIMA, Wash. Six underground tanks that hold a brew of radioactive and toxic waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, federal and state officials said Friday, prompting calls for an investigation from a key senator.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said the leaking material poses no immediate risk to public safety or the environment because it would take a while — perhaps years — to reach groundwater.

But the leaking tanks raise new concerns about delays for emptying them and strike another blow to federal efforts to clean up south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation, where successes often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges.

Department of Energy spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler said there was no immediate health risk and said federal officials would work with Washington state to address the matter.

Regardless, Tom Towslee, a spokesman for Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the senator will be asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate Hanford's tank monitoring and maintenance program.

Wyden is the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, right, is joined by Maia Bellon, director of the Department of Ecology, at a news conference to discuss a tank leak at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, in Olympia, Wash.

/ AP Photo/Rachel La Corte

State officials just last week announced that one of Hanford's 177 underground tanks was leaking 150 to 300 gallons a year, posing a risk to groundwater and rivers. So far, nearby monitoring wells haven't detected higher radioactivity levels.

Inslee traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to discuss the problem with federal officials. He said Friday that he learned in meetings that six tanks are leaking waste.

"We received very disturbing news today," the governor said. "I think that we are going to have a course of new action and that will be vigorously pursued in the next several weeks."

The federal government built the Hanford facility at the height of World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The remote site produced plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, and continued supporting the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal for years.

Today, it is the most contaminated nuclear site in the country, still surrounded by sagebrush but with Washington's Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco several miles downriver.

Hanford's tanks hold some 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste — enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools — and many of those tanks are known to have leaked in the past. An estimated 1 million gallons of radioactive liquid already leaked there.

The tanks also are long past their intended 20-year life span — raising concerns that even more tanks could be leaking — though they were believed to have been stabilized in 2005.

Inslee said the falling waste levels in the six tanks were missed because only a narrow band of measurements was evaluated, rather than a wider band that would have shown the levels changing over time.

"It's like if you're trying to determine if climate change is happening, only looking at the data for today," he said. "Perhaps human error, the protocol did not call for it. But that's not the most important thing at the moment. The important thing now is to find and address the leakers."

There are legal, moral and ethical considerations to cleaning up the Hanford site at the national level, Inslee said, adding that he will continue to insist that the Energy Department completely clean up the site.

He also stressed the state would impose a "zero-tolerance" policy on radioactive waste leaking into the soil.

Cleanup is expected to last decades and cost billions of dollars.

The federal government already spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The Energy Department has said it expects funding levels to remain the same for the foreseeable future, but a new Energy Department report released this week includes annual budgets of as much as $3.5 billion during some years of the cleanup effort.

Much of that money goes toward construction of a plant to convert the underground waste into glasslike logs for safe, secure storage. The plant, last estimated at more than $12.3 billion, is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule. It isn't expected to being operating until at least 2019.

Given those delays, the federal government will have to show that there is adequate storage for the waste in the meantime, Inslee said.

"We are not convinced of this," he said. "There will be a robust exchange of information in the coming weeks to get to the bottom of this."

Inslee and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber have championed building additional tanks to ensure safe storage of the waste until the plant is completed. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said earlier this week that he shares their concerns about the integrity of the tanks but he wants more scientific information to determine it's the correct way to spend scarce money.

Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a Hanford watchdog group, said Friday it's disappointing that the Energy Department is not further along on the waste treatment plant and that there aren't new tanks to transfer waste into.

"None of these tanks would be acceptable for use today. They are all beyond their design life. None of them should be in service," he said. "And yet, they're holding two-thirds of the nation's high-level nuclear waste."

Wyden noted the nation's most contaminated nuclear site — and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy — will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington, D.C.

[dmcastelli]

For all of us flag-waving, patriotic citizens who cheered the work that was instrumental in ending WWII, we saw it as a duty, and the deterrence of the Cold War as a responsibility.

However, for those of us who did this, and have been sickened and/or met their demise prematurely, it is time for government to recognize ITS responsibility to us selfless and patriotic citizens, and deal with this mess once and for all.

For those who want to research some or all of this, the Tri-City Herald has tons of archives online to view. Here is the accident in 1976 that I referred to earlier as one example:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xXghAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nokFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1377%2C7291165

I should also add former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary's write-ups in here also:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HM4qAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_dAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6649,2415629&dq=hazel+o-leary+speaks+at+hanford&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ysQjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-NAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4696,1014460&dq=hazel+o-leary+speaks+at+hanford&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yLsjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ptAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1941,2644829&dq=hazel+o-leary+speaks+at+hanford&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BdxRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dDIMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5140,2494764&dq=hazel+o-leary+speaks+at+hanford&hl=en

http://m.spokesman.com/stories/1996/jun/16/whistleblowers-chased-out-ouster-comes-despite/

http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/roadmap/index.html



Respectfully,

David Castelli,
3rd Generation Former Hanford Worker

[outback_jackson]

DMCASTELLI says: "Radioactive contamination has reached the Columbia River......Even to the mouth of the river, all the way to the Pacific Ocean, this problem exists".



Yes, leaking radioactive and toxic waste has a bad habit of following the watershed, and in that area, it would eventually lead to the Columbia and downstream to the Pacific. This is the problem with nuclear waste since uranium-238 has a half-life of about 4.47 billion years.

Unfortunately, our nuclear program used uranium in order to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, when liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) would have been safer. We should be replacing our archaic nuclear program with LFTRs or other 4th Gen technology.


NORWAY BEGINS FOUR YEAR TEST OF THORIUM NUCLEAR REACTOR
Dec. 11, 2012

http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/11/norway-begins-four-year-test-of-thorium-nuclear-reactor/

[knsn_for_cmn_sense]

Erassmus.... While you are pointing your gnarled old finger at us you do realize that you canuks get a good portion of your electricity from nuclear.... Right... Many of them made by the same companies and contractors as the plants in America.... Right...

The reason you know about our leaks. Is because they are reported on....

But you keep burying your head in the sand and only pointing your finger south if it makes you feel better.

cof TAR SANDS ENVIRONMENTAL NIGHTMARE cof

[erasmus111]

knsn_for_cmn_sense

Like I've told you before, stick to what you know. Which is NOTHING.

The only reactors are back east and most of them are dismantled or shut down.

Most of Canada does NOT get their electricity from nuclear power plants.

[erasmus111]

"The reason you know about our leaks. Is because they are reported on...."


Yeah, after they've already been leaking for 50 years! hahahaha!

[dmcastelli]

Furthermore, new studies continue to emerge that either misguided, miscalculated or deliberately skewed data underestimated the severity of the amounts of contamination measured previously. Given the fact that despite O'Leary's fist-clenched vow that all matters would see the light of day, the truth is, not at all.

As I said a moment ago, politics (mostly ran by Democrats for those who care to know) overrules the value of human life and basic decency for the sake of political expediency.

When Hanford's cleanup was announced, we all were told that it would not take any more than 20 years total to clean it all up. Now, 20-plus years later, we have not done all that much to eliminate the most severe risks involved.

Decommissioned reactors have been mothballed, some demolished or dismantled, along with the facilities that created most of this mess. In the meantime, the greater risk of this highly-toxic and dangerously toxic radioactive sludge/slurry, etc. has been the last thing to really be addressed. Ironic? It would appear so.

While this goes on, people get sick and die, animals are seen in and around the site with huge tumors (Including deer seen through binoculars, one can see them on the bodies of these animals), and so on.

The Dose Reconstruction Project was a whitewash that minimalized the exposure, and portends to claim that only a small dose at the time would have a slight to minimal risk on the population. What has NOT been accounted for, is the fact that contamination can be measured by simply digging a hole someplace, and aiming a survey meter at it. This was proven at one of the other Manhattan Project sites, Oak Ridge in Tennessee! It was done with a video camera taping the results.

That was buried in some archival vault somewhere in the early 90's also. Surprised? Don't be. The corruption is systemic, deep, and wide. Those who sold their soul for this mess to come about have died long ago, most prematurely as well in some cases. That serves as a somber reality check to me also.

Yucca Mountain and the BWIP (Basalt Waste Isolation Project) have both been political footballs as well. States do not want this toxic soup being trucked in or through their states, liability and risk being the chief arguments. The BWIP issue also claims that seismic matters of fault lines and such preclude usage of the site that was being prepared right there at Hanford. Stalling for time endures, while the waste keeps on leaking, and causing the harm it does.

Mark my words, one day, somebody will declare this statement: "The catastrophic leaks at Hanford were far worse than estimated or imagined."

Call it prophetic if you like, but unless intense pressure from citizens around the USA speak up, it will come to pass.


Finally, how long will it take to get this mess cleaned up? Who really knows?! Between hobby-horse contractors milking the system the same way WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply System-pronounced "WHOOPS!") was taken for billions of dollars, and eventually 4 out of 4 projects were defaulted. Only one nuclear plant was completed and brought online in the early 80's WNP-2 (Washington Nuclear Plant), that is now called the Columbia Generating Plant.

http://www.nucleartourist.com/us/columbia.htm

This mess also caused in 1982, the largest Municipal Bond Default in history with the termination of those 4 plants. Again, politics ruled the day under the Bonneville Power Administration, the Federal agency that pulled the plug on the funding for the projects. You can see the remains of 2 of the plants- 1,4 at Hanford, and the other two in Western Washington at Satsop.

And given the remarks of Governor Jay Inslee, don't buy it. it's like that movie that has the place burning down in apocalyptic proportions, while automated announcements are generated saying:

"Everything is under control, please remain calm"...

That is just about as honest as Jim Jones and his cohorts at Jones-town in Guyana telling those 500 lost souls in 1978,

"Drink the [Cyanide laced] Kool-Aid, it tastes great!"

While we are serving that, how about some Heavy Water with Crushed Isotopes, Mutatoes, and Cher-i-nobyl Jubilee?

[dmcastelli]

I have a sister who died 6 years ago this summer, who lived and died less than 5 miles from Hanford's 300 Area (that also has radioactivity pollution still affecting it), whose autopsy was "inconclusive" and "unknown" as to the cause of death.

What is clear to me, is that the politics of the day overrule the lives of those sick and dying. Radioactive contamination has reached the Columbia River, and has been found in aged species of Sturgeon that bottom feed in the Columbia. Even to the mouth of the river, all the way to the Pacific Ocean, this problem exists.

[cantstopstupid]

Hi, My Grandfather worked here..He died of cancer..My father grew up near here he also died of cancer(59) Not a coincidence....Kim

[dmcastelli]

Dear Kim,

I am absolutely sorry to hear of your loss of your grandfather, I presume it was before his time... It is tragic and morally wrong this continues to go on, while ruining the lives of families and the individuals respectively.

And yes Kim, it is ABSOLUTELY no "coincidence."

Blessings to you and your family for comfort!

David :-)

[dmcastelli]

Due to the length of the strike, and the short-sighted drive to get production going again, the Engineering unit was denied their demands.

The "editorial reply" to this debacle in the making took place on August 30 1976, when material within one of the processing "glove boxes" of the Z-plant went critical, and blew out. Harold McCluskey, one of my stepdad's coworkers, became the most irradiated man in history from that accident.

Ironically, my stepdad had worked "graveyard shift", and taken samples from that same glovebox unit less than 3 hours prior to that incident. My stepdad would later be diagnosed with cancer in January of 1985, and be dead less than 7 months later from the explosive spread of the disease. Our family received a modest sum in 2005 as compensation for his death at the young age of 53.

As you can see from my short vignettes, safety and common sense have not been first priority at Hanford. If anything, most of the prime contractors, then and now, see Hanford as a cash cow that if compared, would exceed the size of Paul Bunyan's big blue Ox known as Babe on a ratio of at least 1000-1.

Any respectable clean-up efforts in the 90's when this all began were more symbolic than real. "We're gonna"... was heard over and over again. the summer and early Fall of 1993 saw Clinton's Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary come to the Hanford site, to declare that all stones would be overturned, and the long standing problems would be addressed firmly.

It was at this same time, that horrific revelations came to light of the "Green Run," a deliberate release of radioactive iodine into the atmosphere to measure its effects on humans and for the US Air Force to detect with its air-sampling units. The rationale for the latter was to determine if atmospheric testing could verify whether or not nuclear testing in the Soviet Union could be detected in the USA from fallout carried aloft.

Worse still, was irradiation of prison inmates, terminally ill patients injected with plutonium to see how quickly and in what manner they would die, etc. Most of this has already been forgotten and buried again, just like the victims themselves.

Ironically, the late 70's had a democratic governor, Dixy Lee Ray, a woman who has also headed the Atomic Energy Commission prior to her election. The AEC morphed into ERDA (Energy Research and Development Administration), which then became ensconced in what is now the Department of Energy (DOE) of the Federal Government.

The pattern here is pretty simple: Protect Hanford's existence was the cry of 60's and beyond. When some of the production work began to wane in the 60's this is when the effort of "Diversification" was introduced as the buzzword to the flag-waving inhabitants of the Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland Washington that all are in the immediate shadow of Hanford).

And indeed, with incentives on the table, diversification became a reality that extended life to Hanford for 30 more years. With the disclosures that came to light in 1993, the story of Hanford started a new paradigm, this monumental task of cleaning up the colossal mess that had been created.

About this time, the Hanford Health Information Archives at Gonzaga University was created and is curated now at Foley Library there. This archive compiles the growing litany of people whose health, including mine and my family's were adversely affected in so many ways.

Even now, people downwind, downstream, and right in the "hot zone" are dying at rates that have yet to be fully investigated. We need an Erin Brockovich impassioned effort to fully reveal the total effects that Hanford has wreaked across the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. The problem is, too many people are dying before their stories can be told, and any relationship to Hanford is being denied, minimalized, marginalized, etc.

I have health issues that are consistent with my work at one of the sites, my mother manifested symptoms consistent with Radiation Sickness 30 years ago, yet the Hanford-oriented medical staff at Kadlec hospital acted as if was a problem of unknown origin.

When I orally presented the issues she faced to an individual the DOE courted to oversee the cleanup who is also a Doctor, he did not hesitate to call it Radiation Sickness. I have friends and former classmates dying prematurely of cancer at an alarming rate.

[BuryDems]

Send the contamination to Obama. He'll spread it everywhere just to "Level The Playing Field"

[dmcastelli]

Okay Armchair quarterbacks, listen up. Quit assuming and let's get down to the truth from someone that lived and worked there, and had family before him that did also... That would be me!

Let's start with WWII... General Leslie Groves was a typical general of the era, that saw his duty as only that of doing anything necessary to win a war in the manner the top levels of Government told him to.

That in mind, land was condemned, the towns of White Bluff and Hanford were moved (including bodies in the cemeteries) and relocated. Over 600 square miles of land that is bordered by the Columbia river was chosen for this reason.

General Groves knew nothing about the liability or long term effects of radiation, or for that matter, any form or source of radioactive materials. His mentality was to win a war, and as far as he was concerned, when the war was over, to put a barbed wire fence around the site, and declare it off limits, so that whatever hazards remained would likely never bother anyone.

What Gen. Groves DID NOT expect, was that research, power plants, Breeder reactors (Such as the N reactor that ran during the younger years of my life), the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), large scale nuclear weapons material and repository, agricultural, biomedical, and many other fields and disciplines would all converge on this patch of desert to give life to this industry for decades to come.

Battelle Northwest Memorial Laboratories (PNL) is one of the premiere research entities still in existence there even now, and no doubt, part of their research involves the mess Hanford'd mismanagement of waste has created.

You can research online, and find archival films of huge open sand pits that were unlined, and dumping highly toxic waste into 50 gallon steel drums, which were then unceremoniously pushed over the edge to tumble down into the pit below as the camera pans with the drum making its tumbling descent.

The workers seen had no protection to them at all, other than maybe a pair of work gloves and a hardhat. Burial pits like these dot the landscape around the Hanford site, and the bigger question remains as to whether or not those sites were all accounted for or archived for any future accountability.

My stepdad was a Nuclear Process Operator that handled fuel elements and also "buttons" of processed material used for weapons. the PUREX (not the same as your laundry detergent, so don't make any assumptions or conections to the makers of Purex soap, etc.) plant that processed and then stored the material in heavily vaulted and protected storage areas at the "Area 200" zone in the center of the site.

Risks were so high, that he could only work for limited times, due to how "hot" the material was. He also worked in processing Americium, a liquid product that was also highly toxic in radioactivity at Hanford's Z-Plant.

A strike by union workers in early 1976 had various parts of the site closed down, including the Z plant. When the strike ended, the Engineering teams demanded that Management authorize the purging and replacement of the contaminated material in the process columns that purified the Americium.

[getthefacts503]

The Hanford site was created during WWII and ran throughout the Cold War as one of the largest components of the our nuclear arsenal. It is fallacious to conflate the environmental cleanup of a nuclear weapons enrichment plant from the dawn of nuclear technology with a nuclear power plant. Hanford produced massive waste because at the time the government was concerned with creating nuclear weapons as fast as possible (not to mention this was before the environmental impacts were fully understood).

The cleanup effort is behind schedule and costs so much because it is an unprecedented effort. Environmental Management (the division of DOE that deals with the cleanup) is chronically underfunded and must deal with competing state regulators across the entire complex.

Again, the Hanford site is not a nuclear power plant. It was a nuclear weapons enrichment facility. To equate the two is tantamount to saying that a CFL lightbulb is the same a mercury factory.

[pdp1171]

Animals burrow under the tanks, eat the stuff that leaks out because it is salt, and **** it around the area. This has been going on for 50 years.