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A tank leaking plutonium at a contaminated nuclear waste site in Washington has prompted the state's governor to sound the alarm over the threat it poses.
"The lack of an immediate threat does not in any way shape or form should be allowed to reduce the recognition of the long-term threat of this material reaching the ground water or the Columbia River," Governor Jay Inslee said Saturday.
The U.S. Department of Energy has confirmed liquid levels are dropping in one of nearly 200 underground tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, about 400 kilometres southeast of Vancouver.
While there's no immediate risk to human health, critics worry it's only a matter of time until the toxic sludge finds its way into regional food systems.
Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge, a non-profit that monitors the nuclear reservation said state officials are now waiting for the federal government to patch the leak.
Carpenter said a plan is in place to drain the tanks and solidify the waste into glass, but the treatment plant meant to do the work has been plagued with problems.
"Mismanagement, short-range-thinking, profiteering by contractors and incompetence by the government agency that's supposed to be running this plant," said Carpenter
Over the years, more than a million gallons of radioactive waste have already leaked into the ground at Hanford.
I think that the Keystone XL pipeline is the least of the Americans worries. Considering the half-life of th plutonium is more than a few decades plus I live in Vancouver and if you have a parent or you yourself remember the "Hanford Necklace"?
In the Fifties toxic nuclear gas was released and drifted over central BC and Washington causing residents thyroid problems, where their thyroids were removed surgically. Hence the Hanford Necklace scar. LA Times did the most recent article but since I lived in the PNW my whole life and with the Jetstream brought the fallout from Fukishima and hit the PNW and parts of southern Alaska so I am not too worried about Radiation since might get Cancer when I am older but just sucks the sockeye Koho and pinks Salmonn runs might be affected since I enjoy fishing so that directly effects me.
Also it seems no one protesting this but Keystone XL is attracting all this attention and it is not even built yet look at the people protesting makes no sense but as a person who likes to Fish this sucks then again I fish out of the Fraser which is not part of the Columbia River Basin but it is still not water you drink from the River either due to silt and everything gets washed into it.
Plus if Western Washington wants B.C. and Alberta to help fund this clean up then I am all for it since it is tax dollars well spent but if state is waiting for the federal Government to patch it then it might take a while and 2019 to get the treatment plant built is B.S....I mean lets just build it right and ASAP and worry about costs afterward.
I think it's a travesty that people are even considering more nuclear plants.
We should encourage childless couples with our tax policies and rely on safe renewable alternate fuels wherever possible.
Of they could build nuclear reactors that burn nuclear waste, this is prevalent in Europe but would require new plants to be built. Can nuclear waste be recycled? | MNN - Mother Nature Network
Reprocessing spent fuel—separating the different radioactive elements so that some can be reused—isn’t new. France and the UK have been running recycling facilities for more than a decade, and in 2006 Japan switched on a plant. In fact, the DOE researched reprocessing until the 1970s, when the US banned it, fearing that the separated plutonium created by the process could lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons. Today, the agency, which oversees the GNEP, aims to build advanced reactors that would “burn” the radioactive waste repeatedly, converting it into less harmful, shorter-lived elements with each cycle; in comparison, the existing approach only burns it once.
For the world to ever get off of oil/coal nuclear will be the only long term solution.
Yeah I think Nuclear Gen IV Reactors are the way to go and just won'
built them on the West Coasts Pacific Ring of fire fault lines to avoid tsunami and major earthquakes and I see no issue with new ones built.
I would be more worried about the old Gen II plants that are 40+ years old and beyond their original designed operational lifespan and I would love if we finally can create Nuclear Fusion power plants that are so close yet so far but might be possible 15-20 years or 50 years or find something better.
I the mean time Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors look decent alternative till we create fusion and it would be perfect for our energy needs.
GTO, unfortunately we have the anti-progress, demagogic neo-Malthusian environmental lobby to contend with here that would be more than happy to send us living 18th century lifestyles than shut down all of our coal fired plants and replace them with brand new, safe, nuclear power plants. The power plants at Fukushima and others that have failed that made high profile news are Gen II reactors build after WWII. That little factoid fails to be mentioned in most media.
As for the waste, the site is going to have to be Love Canal for the lazy ass, reactionary government to get a move on it and manage the waste properly so it doesn't leak.
The power plants at Fukushima and others that have failed that made high profile news are Gen II reactors build after WWII. That little factoid fails to be mentioned in most media.
That was a human failure. It should have never been sited there to begin with and the backup power should have been hardened against a catastrophic event after it was. That was most likely avoidable even after the fact had they accepted the offer from the US to fly in generators.
KING 5 News has learned there’s been a series of unexpected hydrogen gas releases from a tank holding radioactive waste at Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Confidential sources say it began on March 16 and lasted for several days, much longer than usual, and they worry a single spark could have set off an explosive release of radioactivity.
This comes two days after a report by a government panel expressing concerns about the release of flammable gasses at Hanford and the government's inability to respond to them.
Our confidential sources and government representatives are giving dramatically different versions of what has happened. Both agre a million-gallon tank holding nuclear waste at Hanford had a build-up of hydrogen gas.
Our confidential sources say it was of a magnitude larger than anything teams there have seen in at least two years and "burped" days longer than normal.
Workers who toil above the buried Hanford tank farms constantly monitor the tanks for gas build-ups and will conduct controlled releases to reduce pressure. We're told this was a spontaenous release, not controlled.
Hydrogen gas is constantly being produced in some tanks by the extremely high temperatures of nuclear waste. They are like dozens of underground crock pots just simmering away. Sometimes, they can boil over.
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Big Bertha burps again
KING 5 News has learned there’s been a series of unexpected hydrogen gas releases from a tank holding radioactive waste at Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
