Another, Older Mess: Hanford Nuclear Reservation

Submitted by GreyHawk on March 26, 2011 - 19:32

The ongoing nuclear issues in Japan have sparked renewed domestic concerns about our own nuclear power plants and their relative safety. One site, in particular, recently came back into the spotlight when Der Spiegel posted an article about it entitled America's Atomic Time Bomb: Hanford Nuclear Waste Still Poses Serious Risks, By Marc Pitzke in New York. From the article:

Fifty-two buildings at Hanford are contaminated, and 240 square miles are uninhabitable due to the radioactivity that has seeped into the soil and ground water: uranium, cesium, strontium, plutonium and other deadly radionuclides. Altogether, more than 204,000 cubic meters of highly radioactive waste remain on site -- two-thirds of the total for the entire US.

In one area, discharges of more than 216 million liters of radioactive, liquid waste and cooling water have flowed out of leaky tanks. More than 100,000 spent fuel rods -- 2,300 tons of them -- still sit in leaky basins close to the Columbia River.

The cooling water for the facilities came from that river. Until 1971, it was secretly pumped right back into it after only a minimum amount of treatment. High radiation levels were measured 250 miles (402 kilometers) further west, where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific. It was mostly Native Americans who ate the poisoned fish.

Note the last line: It was mostly Native Americans who ate the poisoned fish. That would make it yet another issue in a potentially long line of issues that Native Americans have with our government's manner of handling important issues. [See also: Klamath fish kill and New Orleans for additional examples of government oversight falling down on the job.]

Anywho...again, from Der Spiegel:

On December 3, 1949, Hanford physicists released a highly radioactive cloud through the smokestack of the so-called T-Plant, the world's largest plutonium factory at the time. The radiation was almost 1,000 times more than what was released during the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the worst nuclear accident in American history. Fallout from the experiment, which was called "Green Run," drifted all the way to California. People wondered why they suddenly got sick.

Studies would eventually show that some babies at Hanford were radiated twice as much as the children of Chernobyl. Before the "Green Run," Tom Bailie, the 2-year-old son of a farmer loved to play in the fields. But then he suffered an inexplicable paralysis; later, he wouldn't be able to father children. His entire family died of cancer.

But it wasn't until 1986 that Bailie, with the help of a dogged reporter from the Spokesman Review, a regional newspaper, began to figure out why. It was the beginning of what would turn out to be a decades-long fight between the radiation victims and the US government. The victims sued the government and forced it to open its secret files. Some of the lawsuits have been consolidated into class-action suits and are still ongoing today.

[...Read more...]

Lovely, and quite telling about where our nation's priorities are - at least, from the perspective of the power brokers.

 

 

The Hanford site is listed on the Superfund web site:

Site Name City State Human Exposure Contaminated Ground Water Migration
HANFORD 100-AREA (USDOE) BENTON COUNTY WA

HANFORD 200-AREA (USDOE) BENTON COUNTY WA
HANFORD 300-AREA (USDOE) BENTON COUNTY WA

Here's a list of YouTube videos about Hanford. I haven't watched them yet, but pulled 'em from the list that came up when I searched:

There are messes that still need cleaning up after several years. The Hanford site is merely one of them. All of the sites listed at the Superfund page should be reminders of the high cost to people, the environment and to our economic and social well-being as a nation. Even one site or disaster should serve as a teaching tool based in history about the importance of government regulation, oversight, and - ultimately - the reason that accountability is crucial. Failure to investigate, enforce, hold accountable and see things through to ensure both sides of the responsibility equation are balanced is inexcusable.

Failure to recognize, prioritize and fund the efforts required to clean up these messes and to implement an improved set of regulations with a strict regimen of oversight and enforcement is an abdication of responsibility - it's criminal.

And which way are today's "conservatives" trying to push us...?

Thank you for your time.

accountability, Regulations, Nuclear Waste, nuclear power, Hanford, Superfund
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Comments

Deep Harm

March 26, 2011 - 21:07

Good article.

In the federal government, there is a standard assumption that water dilutes toxicity of radionuclides to where it's not a health problem. However, a study of the Rio Grande River near Los Alamos, found that heavy particles, like plutonium-239, settle into low spots in the river bed, where they form concentrated placers, the way gold does. We should always question assumptions, particularly when human health hangs in the balance.

GreyHawk

March 26, 2011 - 22:39

We need some type of mechanism in place to ensure that attempts to mollify or play down impacts and potential dangers are stopped short.

There's far too much that we have to address that has already had an impact - and those items and impacts are likely to be ongoing, with unforeseen consequences (or at least unannounced but suspected consequences).

...thanks for commenting! :) It's good to see you here again.