Secret Nuclear Waste: Hanford, Washington
Hanford Nuclear Reactor
Recycling, conservation of energy, and global climate change are all environmental issues that the average American citizen is familiar with. Nuclear waste on the other hand, is something only ever thought as something out of a cliché action movie scene. Who would have fathomed that 53 million gallons of high-level nuclear waste lay in eastern Washington at a site known as Hanford.
Hanford, Washington was the site where plutonium for the first nuclear bombs was manufactured under the Manhattan Project of WWII. For decades, Hanford was also producing millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste as a byproduct of extracting the plutonium. This nuclear waste was then put into temporary cement tanks for storage; when the tanks reached capacity, the waste was simply dumped onto the soil itself. Regulation of nuclear waste was nonexistent at the time. Today, the tanks which were originally intended to only be in use for a few years are still there. They have been continually leaking into the groundwater under the soil which will eventually move into the Columbia River. Although Hanford’s nuclear manufacturing days have long been disbanded, its radioactivity will outlive generations to come – plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years.
Don’t feel out the loop. The Manhattan project was a top secret government project and much of the information regarding levels of contamination and the dangers of nuclear waste at Hanford were relatively unknown to the public. However, the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 has since declassified thousands of documents which has ultimately led to public outcry for proper cleanup and containment.
The United States Department of Energy is held legally responsible for timely cleanup of Hanford and the government is annually spending about 1.8 billion dollars trying to do this. It is one of the biggest budgets ever dedicated to any environmentally related problem. Yet with their copious amounts of money, cleanup dates are being delayed for years citing insufficient technologies as a main delaying factor.
This sounds absolutely absurd. In a world where one can surf the internet and also make phone calls from the same device no bigger than a deck of cards, technology should be able to keep up with a problem that was created decades ago.
Not to be misunderstood, the containment and cleanup of nuclear waste is an excruciatingly difficult task, but how could 1.8 billion dollars of government money not create at least a miniature dent in the problem that is insufficient technology? The federal government needs to realize that Hanford has the potential to create a wide scale disaster like nothing ever seen before. High-level nuclear waste has been associated for years with multiple levels of health risks, most significant being an agent for numerous different cancers. If even a small percentage of that 53 million gallons of high-level nuclear waste reaches the Columbia River, disaster will be guaranteed.
Simply put, the government needs to step up and ensure that deadlines are being followed and new technologies are being researched and implemented. The Washington State Department of Ecology has even concluded that “waste is expected to reach the river in 12 to 50 years if cleanup does not proceed on schedule.” Obviously the government doesn’t have Hanford on its immediate danger list, but it needs to be. If left as is, the future of America is one full of radioactive, cancerous citizens.
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Thank you Hannibal I hope that you will join the ranks of our regular commenters.
I leave a response when I like a article on a site or I have something to add to the discussion. It is caused by the fire displayed in the post I browsed. And on this article this blog name. I was actually moved enough to post a thought :-) I do have 2 questions for you if you don’t mind. Is it only me or does it look like some of these responses look like left by brain dead folks? :-P And, if you are writing on additional online sites, I’d like to follow you. Would you list the complete urls of your communal sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?
Great post, it’s always good to see Hanford in the blogosphere. Heart of America NW is a non-profit citizens’ watchdog group for the Hanford site, based in Seattle. I just want to encourage you to submit what you’ve blogged here directly to the Department of Energy – a comment period on a settlement to delay cleanup by decades runs through this Friday, December 11th. You can easily submit a comment by emailing [email protected].
Also, I thought you might be interested to know that even the Department of Energy will tell you that there’s over 100 square miles of groundwater at Hanford contaminated with radioactive wastes. And it’s seeping directly towards the beloved Columbia River.
And give us a shout! If you’re interested in Hanford/nuclear waste issues, we try to stay up to date on them on our blog!