I have posted a number of articles about the situation at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington. For decades, the U.S. government has been trying to clean up the mess left over from processing nuclear materials for our nuclear weapons arsenal. A variety of nuclear materials were placed in single wall tanks and buried for disposal. Unfortunately, the tanks started leaking into the ground, threatening the surrounding communities and agriculture as well as the Columbia River which supplies a lot of water to the Northwestern United States. Double walled tanks were developed and some of the waste in the worst single walled tanks was pumped into the new tanks. We were assured that the double walled tanks would not leak.
Last year, a double walled tank with the designation of AV-102 set off some alarms. The tank was investigated and water and sludge were observed between the inner wall and the outer wall of the tank. After denying that there was a leak and turning off the alarms, the company in charge of the tanks eventually admitted that there was a possible leak of radioactive materials from the inner tank to the space between the inner wall and the outer wall. Once again we were assured that there was no danger and that the leak would be contained by the outer wall of the tank. Recently, higher radiation levels were found in the soil surrounding tank AY-102. Apparently, despite all the assurances, the material in the tank, which is highly radioactive, is leaking into the soil. The double walled tank is not able to contain the waste and protect the environment.
The hope was that moving the worst waste from the most deteriorated single wall tanks into the double walled tanks would give the company time to complete the vitrification plant which would allow the waste to be mixed with liquid glass and solidified into glass logs for permanent disposal. The Department of Energy authorized work to begin on the vitrification plant before the details of the vitrification process were well understood. As might be expected, this turned out to be a disaster. The material in the different tanks consists of a mix of different toxic and radioactive chemicals. The exact types and amounts of chemicals vary between tanks and their chemical interaction is not well understood. It is possible that explosive gasses may be generated as work proceeds and there is a risk of explosions when the tanks are opened. In addition, the constituents of the tanks consist of a variety of physical forms including solids, thick sludges, thin liquids, gases and particulates of different sizes. These different particulates have proven to be especially hard to deal with in the vitrification process. They can lead to corrosion of the pipes in the plant and result in leaks and even explosions. When it was clear that the plant would not function as desired, work was suspended last year.
The clock is running out at Hanford. The single wall tanks are leaking, the double walled tanks are beginning to leak, work is halted on the vitrification plant and there is no permanent storage facility for any glass logs created by the plant even if it is completed and works correctly. At the very least, radioactive materials will continue to leak into the ground water and the Columbia River posing a threat to the health of the people in the Pacific Northwest. At worst, there will be explosions that will inject radioactive materials into the atmosphere to rain down over a wider area of the Northwest United States.
Hanford Nuclear Reservation Map:
