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Showing posts with label Hanford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hanford. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Monday, 10 July 2017
Hanford: No money to top radio active waste flowing into the Columbia River
RADIOACTIVE
WASTE FLOWING FREELY INTO COLUMBIA RIVER BECAUSE THERE’S NO MONEY
TO STOP IT
14
June, 2017
Waking Times
A
member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently informed
the public that radioactive waste from the decommissioned Hanford
nuclear power plant is ‘flowing freely’ into the Columbia river.
The
mighty Columbia river is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest
region of America, flowing down from Canada, winding through eastern
Washington state and along the border between Oregon, ultimately
moving through downtown Portland and into the Pacific. The Hanford
site, located near Kennewick, WA is up river from a million or so
people, not to mention the wildlife.
Constructed
in the 1940’s as part of the Manhattan Project, the plant was
decommissioned after the Cold War, leaving behind some 53
million gallons of high level radioactive waste.
Proposed as a Superfund site in 1988, Hanford is an uncontrollable
ecological and public health disaster.
“Soils contaminated by radiological and chemical waste from plutonium manufacture for the Manhattan Project and subsequent activities. Groundwater contaminated by strontium-90, carbon-14, tritium andhexavalent chromium and discharges into the Columbia River, which is the water supply for over 170,000 people.[33]
Groundwater and soil contamination by tritium, uranium, cyanide, carbon tetrachloride, technetium and other substances from processing, finishing and managing nuclear materials including plutonium fornuclear weapons.[34]
Groundwater contamination by uranium, VOCs, strontium-90 and tritium from nuclear fuel fabrication. Soil contamination by uranium, cobalt-60, copper, PCBs, chromium and possibly other substances. Uranium and TCE have been detected in groundwater adjacent to the Columbia River, which is used for drinking water for over 170,000 people.[35]” [Source]
A
recent review of the site concluded that contaminated ground water is
contaminating the Columbia.
The announcement came as part of a five-year review of cleanup measures taken at the Superfund site. Officials with the EPA and the Department of Energy said at a meeting Wednesday that the review showed most of the cleanup actions at Hanford were properly “protective,” meaning the public was shielded from the worst of the site’s estimated 500 million gallons of potentially radioactive waste.
Radioactive sludge in shuttered reactors, contaminated soil in landfill sites and equipment that was once used to refine the uranium that fueled the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki were all properly contained, according to the report.
But there was a glaring exception: groundwater contaminated with hexavalent chromium and strontium-90 was still flowing into the nearby Columbia River, according to a presentation from Mike Cline, director of the Department of Energy’s Soil & Groundwater Division.
“Contaminated in-area groundwater is still flowing freely into the Columbia,” EPA Project Manager Dennis Faulk told members of the board.” [Source]
Remarkably,
there are not enough funds at present for necessary actions to stop
the leakage, especially in the face of impending environmental cuts
by the Trump administration.
“We don’t have enough funding as it is to do the work that needs to be done,” said Randy Bradbury, spokesman for the Washington state Department of Ecology’s Hanford Nuclear Waste program. “So the cuts are very concerning.” [Source]
Final Thoughts
Ultimately,
this insanity highlights the obvious problem with nuclear power that
no one who profits from this sector of the energy industry will talk
about: nuclear power is impossible for us to contain. And in a nation
with unlimited
funds for war materials and prison
complexes,
it’s an indictment of our values that we don’t have the resources
or the will to protect our land and our people from disasters like
this.
Wednesday, 24 May 2017
Hanford update
HANFORD
Accident #2 in 10 Days! + Ian Zabarte on Yucca Mt. Nuclear
Desecration of Western Shoshone Land
HANFORD
UPDATE:
New
Accident – Radioactive contamination of worker’s clothes as
underground double-sided tank containing 800,000 gallons of
radioactive waste shows signs of failure.
Old
Accident – May 9, 2017 collapse of 20’x20′ of tunnel over
highly radioactive materials from PUREX facility now “remediated”
by 53 dump trucks of soil AND a new plastic tarp held in place by
cement blocks (see: featured image above).
This
Week’s Featured Interviews
Ian
Zabarte is Director of the Nuclear Oversight Project of the Western
Shoshone Nation. He covers Yucca Mountain, Treaty law, and tribal
rights. Native Community Action Council and the healing center
Pooha-Ba, meaning Power Water.
Listen
to the podcast HERE
Thursday, 11 May 2017
You are being lied to about Hanford
HANFORD EMERGENCY SPECIAL: Activist Perspective, Suspicions on Tunnel Collapse, Site Lockdown, Radiation Spike, Health Protection – Nuclear Hotseat
Listen to the podcast HERE
HANFORD EMERGENCY SPECIAL – Interviews:
-
Bob Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he is currently focused on nuclear disarmament, environmental and energy policies.
-
Julie Wert, researcher and member, Radiation Watch, on radiation spike recorded at Hanford on Monday, May 8.
-
Chuck Johnson, Nuclear Power Task Force Director for the Oregon/Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility
-
Mimi German, No Nukes NW and Radcast.org, the citizen radiation monitoring network.
-
Kimberly Roberson, certified nutrition educator and founder of Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN)
-
Radiation Awareness Protection Talk – for more information on how to protect your health and the health of your loved ones from nuclear radiation.
Links to Nuclear Hotseat Hanford interviews of interest:
-
Susannah Frame, KING 5 news, Seattle – dedicated investigative reporter assigned to Hanford site, interviewed on Nuclear Hotseat #109, July 16, 2013
Kevin
may seem to be over the top but, boy, he's got the best intentions
and a big heart. May your recovery go well.
Fukushima
news; Hanford
Nuclear Collapse;
GOVERNMENT LYING
This is not going away! I remember Mike Ruppert talking about Hanford 3 years ago. This discussion is from a year ago
Military Chinooks Positioned Around Hanford Site Tunnel Collapse, Updated Info
Is Hanford A Bigger Threat Than Fukushima? Progressive Roundtable
Mainstream
coverage
Concerns
Strong Winds Could Spread Radioactive Particles From Nuclear Accident
In Hanford WA
Wednesday, 10 May 2017
No-fly one over Hanford
No-Fly
Zone Issued for HANFORD Nuclear Site, Collapse Is Five Times Larger
Than First Estimated
Responders on scene at the buried railroad tunnel next to the Hanford Site's Plutonium Uranium Extraction facility (PUREX) report that the soil collapse over the tunnel is actually 20 feet by 20 feet, much larger than initial estimates of 4 feet by 4 feet.
The depth of the soil collapse appears to have reached the tunnel, Hanford's emergency information site says. There still appears to be no contamination released from the cave-in.
Crews are continuing to survey the area for contamination, the website says: "All personnel in the vicinity of the PUREX facility have been accounted for and there are no reports of injuries."
As a precaution, the site says, workers in the vicinity of the PUREX facility as well as the Hanford Site north of the Wye Barricade (southern entrance to the site) have been told to shelter in-place.
The tunnels to the PUREX facility are located to the east of the facility, extending south, the website explains.
There are two tunnels: One is approximately 360 feet long and the other is approximately 1,700 feet long. The tunnels were used beginning in the 1950s to store contaminated equipment. The 20 foot wide by 20 foot long cave-in is in an area where the two tunnels join together.
Learn More:
Emergency at Hanfor nulcear waste site
Emergency declared at US Hanford nuclear waste site after tunnel collapse
RT,
9
May, 2017
The
US Department of Energy has declared an emergency at the Hanford,
Washington nuclear waste storage site, after a cave-in of a tunnel
used to store radioactive materials and Бequipment.
About
3,000 workers have taken cover at the 200 East Area of the sprawling
complex, local media reported. By 10:30 am local time, the “take
cover” orders have been expanded to the entire site, which is about
half the size of Rhode Island.
A
portion of a tunnel near the plutonium-uranium extraction plant
(PUREX) collapsed early Tuesday morning local time, most likely from
vibrations produced by nearby road work, KING-TV reported.
Initial
reports spoke of a 4-foot (1.2 meter) hole, which was later expanded
to 20 feet (6 meters) across, at the junction of two tunnels used in
the 1960s to store highly radioactive materials and equipment, such
as trains used to transport nuclear fuel rods.
This robot is being used at Hanford right now to sample contamination in the air and on the ground.
The
PUREX facility was built in the 1950s and used until 1988 to extract
plutonium from around 70,000 fuel rods in total. The building has
been vacant for nearly twenty years and “remains highly
contaminated,”according to the Hanford website. Rail cars used to
transport the fuel rods from the nuclear reactors to the processing
facility are buried inside the nearby tunnels.
Press release from Department of Energy on Hanford Site Emergency. We're still monitoring the situation. http://www.hanford.gov/c.cfm/eoc/?page=290 …
#hanford
No
workers were injured in the collapse, and officials have detected no
release of radiation, Washington state Department of Ecology
spokesman Randy Bradbury told AP.
“In
the ‘60s, spent fuel rods were put in railroad cars and, once
filled, the railroad cars were wheeled into a tunnel dug into the
side of a hill,” Bradbury said. “Twenty-eight rail cars in all
fill this particular tunnel. A worker today noticed a collapse of
dirt above the tunnel today, triggering the evacuation.”
Workers
at the complex have been ordered to stay indoors and refrain from
eating and drinking, according to text alerts seen by local media.
Emergency crews are organizing the evacuation.
Photo of massive plutonium finishing plant at Hanford. Tunnel that collapsed led to this building.
Emergency
measures were put in place due to “concerns about subsidence in the
soil covering railroad tunnels,” says a statement posted on the
Hanford facility website.
Residents
of the nearby Benton and Franklin counties do not need to take any
action, the facility said.
Hanford
is located on the Columbia River in eastern Washington, near the
border with Oregon. Built during World War Two as part of the
Manhattan Project to develop the nuclear bomb, it still contains
roughly 53 million gallons – over 2,600 rail cars – worth of
high-level nuclear waste, left from the production of plutonium for
the US nuclear weapons program.
A
number of current and former Hanford workers suffer from serious
medical conditions as a result of exposure to toxic waste leaks and
“burps” of radiation at the complex, RT America reported in April
2016.
‘I thought I was dying’: Ex-Hanford worker gravely ill after inhaling toxic fumes [VIDEO]
http://on.rt.com/7bwh
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