CONTAMINATED WASHINGTON STATE SITE FACES 'CATASTROPHIC' NUCLEAR LEAK

This nuclear waste dump has been permitted and regulated by state and federal policies, regulations and governmental agencies, just like we're being promised (and some local uranium proponents want you to believe) a uranium mine in Pittsylvania County would be. Read this...and then ask yourself if you feel safe or protected.


14 July 2008
From New Scientist Print Edition

One of "the most contaminated places on Earth" will only get dirtier if the US government doesn't get its act together -- clean-up plans are already 19 years behind schedule and not due for completion until 2050.

More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford in Washington State. Most are over 50 years old. Already 67 of the tanks have failed, leaking almost 4 million litres of waste into the ground.

There are now "serious questions about the tanks' long-termviability," says a Government Accountability Office report [2.1 Mbytes PDF], which strongly criticises the US Department of Energy for delaying an $8 billion programme to empty the tanks and treat the waste. The DoE says the clean-up is "technically challenging" and argues that it is making progress in such a way as to protect human health and the environment.

The DoE's plan, however, is "faith-based" , says Robert Alvarez, an authority on Hanford at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. "The risk of catastrophic tank failure will sharply increase as each year goes by," he says, "and one of the nation's largest rivers, the Columbia, will be in jeopardy."

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19926642.900-contaminated-us-site-faces-
catastrophic-nuclear-leak.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news6_head_mg19926642.900