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Governor: 6 tanks leaking radioactive waste at Washington nuclear site
CNN) -- Six tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington state are leaking radioactive waste, the governor said Friday, calling the news "disturbing" even as he insisted there are "no immediate health risks."
"News of six leaking tanks at Hanford raises serious questions about integrity of all single tanks," Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday afternoon on Twitter.
Inslee said that he got the latest information about the site during a meeting in Washington with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
One week earlier, Chu called the governor to tell him that a single-shell tank in the same location was leaking liquids at a rate of 150 to 300 gallons per year. Believed to be the first to lose liquids since 2005, that tank was built in the 1940s and can hold roughly 447,000 gallons of sludge, according to the governor's office.
"(Chu) told me today that his department did not adequately analyze data it had that would have shown the other tanks that are leaking," Inslee said.
The sprawling, 586-square mile Hanford site houses a total of 177 underground tanks full of radioactive sludge, of which 149 are single-shell tanks.
On Friday, Inslee said there is "still no current health risk" tied to the leaks.
He made similar comments a week earlier, saying "it would be quite some time before these leaks could breach groundwater or the Columbia River." At the same time, the governor stressed that the problem must be addressed.
"This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford," he said Friday.
Hard lessons for U.S. nuclear safety from Fukushima meltdown
Hanford became a focal point of U.S. nuclear efforts beginning in 1943, when aspects of the Manhattan Project were moved there. As local residents moved out, thousands of workers moved into the site where plutonium for use in atomic bombs was produced. Two bombs were dropped on Japan during the final days of World War II.
The site -- about half the size of Rhode Island, in an area centered roughly 75 miles east of Yakima -- continued to buzz during the Cold War, with more plutonium production as well as the construction of several nuclear reactors.
The last reactor shut down in 1987, though a mammoth cleanup effort remained to address what state and federal authorities deemed the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere.
Those efforts were bolstered by about $2 billion in federal stimulus funds authorized in several years ago. But decades of more work remain, which is why Washington's governor said he feared that across-the-board budget cuts called the sequester -- which could take effect March 1, unless Congress passes and President Barack Obama signs an alternative -- could negatively affect activity at the site.
"We need to be sure the federal government maintains its commitment and legal obligation to the cleanup of Hanford," Inslee said. "To see Hanford workers furloughed at the exact moment we have additional leakers out there is completely unacceptable."
CNN's Carma Hassan contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/22/us/washington-nuclear/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
"News of six leaking tanks at Hanford raises serious questions about integrity of all single tanks," Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday afternoon on Twitter.
Inslee said that he got the latest information about the site during a meeting in Washington with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
One week earlier, Chu called the governor to tell him that a single-shell tank in the same location was leaking liquids at a rate of 150 to 300 gallons per year. Believed to be the first to lose liquids since 2005, that tank was built in the 1940s and can hold roughly 447,000 gallons of sludge, according to the governor's office.
"(Chu) told me today that his department did not adequately analyze data it had that would have shown the other tanks that are leaking," Inslee said.
The sprawling, 586-square mile Hanford site houses a total of 177 underground tanks full of radioactive sludge, of which 149 are single-shell tanks.
On Friday, Inslee said there is "still no current health risk" tied to the leaks.
He made similar comments a week earlier, saying "it would be quite some time before these leaks could breach groundwater or the Columbia River." At the same time, the governor stressed that the problem must be addressed.
"This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford," he said Friday.
Hard lessons for U.S. nuclear safety from Fukushima meltdown
Hanford became a focal point of U.S. nuclear efforts beginning in 1943, when aspects of the Manhattan Project were moved there. As local residents moved out, thousands of workers moved into the site where plutonium for use in atomic bombs was produced. Two bombs were dropped on Japan during the final days of World War II.
The site -- about half the size of Rhode Island, in an area centered roughly 75 miles east of Yakima -- continued to buzz during the Cold War, with more plutonium production as well as the construction of several nuclear reactors.
The last reactor shut down in 1987, though a mammoth cleanup effort remained to address what state and federal authorities deemed the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere.
Those efforts were bolstered by about $2 billion in federal stimulus funds authorized in several years ago. But decades of more work remain, which is why Washington's governor said he feared that across-the-board budget cuts called the sequester -- which could take effect March 1, unless Congress passes and President Barack Obama signs an alternative -- could negatively affect activity at the site.
"We need to be sure the federal government maintains its commitment and legal obligation to the cleanup of Hanford," Inslee said. "To see Hanford workers furloughed at the exact moment we have additional leakers out there is completely unacceptable."
CNN's Carma Hassan contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/22/us/washington-nuclear/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
I think they may be afraid of causing a panic...how do you evacuate a State?
How could they make containers that were meant to last only 20 years?
If it reaches the Columbia river, it is going o be moving really fast.
I searched for links--the only ppl talking about it really are far left and far right sources, which makes me think mainstream media has been asked to tone it down, just a guess.
What is happening in Japan is similar - 40% increase of radiation related cancers in the past 2 years., babies are being born with deformities or dead and there are fish are still glowing in the water at night. No one is talking about it.
I think we have got ourselves into a real pickle.
How could they make containers that were meant to last only 20 years?
If it reaches the Columbia river, it is going o be moving really fast.
I searched for links--the only ppl talking about it really are far left and far right sources, which makes me think mainstream media has been asked to tone it down, just a guess.
What is happening in Japan is similar - 40% increase of radiation related cancers in the past 2 years., babies are being born with deformities or dead and there are fish are still glowing in the water at night. No one is talking about it.
I think we have got ourselves into a real pickle.
Completely unacceptable. Can't help but wonder where the outrage is over this. Thanks for the link, rivll.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141759n
I'm with you on that. Whenever our government is doing the "nothing to see here folks... just move along" thing, we need to know what is going on.
This is scary stuff isnt it? And it seems its pretty well being kept out of the public eye. It is certainly downplayed. That alone should scare us in a time when they make mountains out of molehills in the media. There is much more of this going on is my guess.
Thanks for the link. I just kind of browsed through it and will take a good look a bit later. Things like this make me wonder about that "storage facility" thing that was going on in Southern Nevada. (Black Mountain, I think it was named.) The idea of the project was to be a nuclear waste storage facility.
I imagine the waste has to go somewhere, but then you take the reality of the Hanford Site. Do we really want to truck and otherwise transport this stuff from all over the country to Southern Nevada? It just seems like a horrible idea to me. If this crap is so volatile, so toxic, what are we doing wanting to move it?
I imagine the waste has to go somewhere, but then you take the reality of the Hanford Site. Do we really want to truck and otherwise transport this stuff from all over the country to Southern Nevada? It just seems like a horrible idea to me. If this crap is so volatile, so toxic, what are we doing wanting to move it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
This has been going on for years and I've never heard of any plan other than throw more money and studies at the problem. I tend to look at things from a 'pumps and piping" perspective, so I would pump water out of the Columbia upstream of the plant and reintroduce it back into the river downstream. This is still kicking the can down the road, but it buys a lot of time. The sheer scope of the problem is something most politicians can't even wrap their tiny minds around. The only other idea I can think of involves moving everyone in Portland to Wyoming.......
This has been going on for years and I've never heard of any plan other than throw more money and studies at the problem. I tend to look at things from a 'pumps and piping" perspective, so I would pump water out of the Columbia upstream of the plant and reintroduce it back into the river downstream. This is still kicking the can down the road, but it buys a lot of time. The sheer scope of the problem is something most politicians can't even wrap their tiny minds around. The only other idea I can think of involves moving everyone in Portland to Wyoming.......
Whenever something like this happens, I just imagine a few "government" workers all leaning on their shovels and saying, "now what do we do?".
You would have to think that they had a few plans thought of, just in case something like this occurred, right? Or is that completely out of line to expect that there should be a few plans out there already.
You would have to think that they had a few plans thought of, just in case something like this occurred, right? Or is that completely out of line to expect that there should be a few plans out there already.
"it would be quite some time before these leaks could breach groundwater or the Columbia River."
"plutonium-239 ....... has a half-life of 24,100 years"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
That's "quite some time".
"plutonium-239 ....... has a half-life of 24,100 years"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
That's "quite some time".
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