-Caveat Lector- ----- Original Message ----- To: "*OBRL_News" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2001 3:28 PM > > Please copy and distribute to other interested individuals and groups > > ********** > > Of interest for those of us living and working in the Pacific NW. > > +++++ > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 22:56:11 EST > Subject: Radioactive Waste Seeps Toward Columbia River > > > Radioactive Waste Seeps Toward Columbia River > KIM MURPHY, Times Staff Writer > > RICHLAND, Wash.--For five years during the 1960s, researchers at the Hanford > Nuclear Reservation took spent fuel from the plant's bomb-making reactors and > conducted a series of radiochemistry experiments. Once the work was finished, > the fuel--so radioactive it couldn't be handled except by remote control--was > buried in three underground trenches. And there it remained, largely > forgotten. Until last year, when routine surveys found tritium--known to > cause birth defects--at concentrations 90 times the federal drinking water > standard in a nearby well. By last month, the level of tritium in the ground > water had increased fourfold. The well lies 3 1/2 miles from the Columbia > River, the greatest river of the American West, the waterway that irrigates 1 > million acres of prime farmland in two states and nurtures 80% of the fall > chinook salmon harvested in Alaska and British Columbia. ests of other wells > have shown that the potent tritium seep hasn't moved more than a quarter-mile > from the burial site. Still, Hanford officials say that the contamination > could reach the river in as little as three years. What's more disturbing > is what may follow. Tritium is one of the fastest-moving radionuclides and > may merely be the scout. Far more deadly nuclear wastes likely are not far > behind. Nowhere has the Cold War's legacy lingered so poisonously as it has > at the 560-square-mile Hanford reservation, operated by the federal > government for more than 40 years to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs. It > is the most contaminated place in North America, with 80% of the spent > nuclear fuel in the Department of Energy's inventory--2,100 metric tons in > all--stored in a pair of aging basins, some of their fuel canisters crumbling > and corroded. Deteriorating underground tanks a few miles away hold 54 > million gallons of radioactive soup that over the years has made its way into > the ground water....excerpts: > > How far has it leaked? There is already some tritium in the Columbia River, > measurable in Richland's drinking water supply--although at well below > federal safety standards. Mulberry bushes measured along the Hanford shore > also have shown substantial amounts of strontium-90 and thorium, in addition > to other toxic contaminants such as chromium. None of it, federal > officials believe, is enough to jeopardize public health. The Columbia's vast > flows so far have diluted the contamination to well within federal standards. > But imagine what it will be like in 10 or 20 years, say Washington state > officials, who are pushing for increased cleanup efforts. Under the most > optimistic scenario, the Energy Department says it can clean up 10% of > Hanford's leaky tanks by 2018. The rest of the waste won't be hauled away for > 40 to 50 more years. What of removing the tanks themselves? No plan. Target > date for completely removing contamination around the tank farms and > plutonium processing plants? Never.The magnitude of cleaning up the plants > that manufactured America's atomic weapon arsenal--facilities such as the > Idaho National Laboratory, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Rocky > Flats near Denver and Hanford--only recently has begun to be understood. > While the DOE expects to spend at least $186 billion over the next 70 years > cleaning up 53 sites across the country, there is a growing realization that > many of them will never be completely safe. In fact, there are more than 100 > sites nationwide with contamination that will require long-term stewardship. > At places such as Hanford and Savannah River, it means keeping some of the > gates locked forever. At a number of other sites, it means setting up > agreements with local governments to make sure that, maybe half a century > down the road, somebody doesn't unwittingly decide to build a housing tract > or dig a well atop a buried store of poison. "As the years go by, people > are starting to realize that the non- cleanup cleanup is all there's going to > be. The fact is that we don't know how to clean up some things," said > Katherine Probst of Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan group in > Washington, D.C., that studies environmental issues. ... The DOE has > awarded a $6.9-billion contract to British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to build a > plant to treat the first 10% of the radioactive wastes. But scientists for > the National Research Council already have expressed doubts. Retrieving the > waste from the damaged tanks, they warn, could end up spilling just as much > as already has leaked into the ground over the years, about 1 million > gallons. It would be hard to imagine a more treacherous chemical stew: An > estimated 190 million curies of radioactivity (2-millionths of a curie of > plutonium is deadly if it gets in a person's lungs) mix with various highly > toxic compounds within the giant steel-lined tanks buried up to 30 feet > underground. Most of the cement shells are 30 years beyond their design life. > Inside, the waste has curdled and boiled, forming volatile gas deposits and > toxic crusts atop the liquid. A total of 149 of the 177 tanks were built with > a single steel shell. Of those, 69 already have leaked. For the rest, Hanford > officials admit, it is probably only a matter of time. Some progress has been > made. More than half of the 77 million gallons in the most hazardous > single-shell tanks has been pumped into relatively safer double-shell > vessels. "We will have all the liquids we can get out of the single-shell > tanks by 2004," said Jon Peschong of Hanford's office of river protection. > But that may be scant reason for relief. At least one of the double-shelled > tanks has shown signs of deterioration. And none of the tanks should be > considered safe storage, Hanford officials say. Only in the last few > years have scientists begun to understand how serious a threat Hanford poses > to the Columbia River, thanks in large part to a pair of engineers who > resisted the government's long-held assertion to the contrary. ...The first > thing he did was put Brodeur to work examining the soil below the storage > tanks. > > Brodeur and Ruud started on the 15 tanks at the SX farm, probing > 130 feet into the ground. "What we found . . . was contamination so hot it > swamped our equipment. We couldn't even read it," Ruud recalls. Not until > two years later, in November 1997, did Hanford's Pacific Northwest National > Laboratory officially admit that "mobile" tank waste appeared to have reached > the ground water 10 miles from the Columbia River. And there was more: > Two contaminants, tritium and nitrate, which move as rapidly as water through > the soil, already had reached the river. So far, ground-water manager Mike > Thompson says, there is no indication that the worst stuff--radionuclides > such as uranium, technetium-99 and cobalt-60--have made it as far as the > river. The worst tank waste is probably still 20 years away, he believes. > But a disturbing alarm was sounded in October, when the highest ground-water > level of technetium-99 ever found at Hanford--38 times the federal drinking > water standard--was discovered near one of the leaky single-shell tanks. > Technetium-99 is one of the compounds that moves fastest through the soil. > And then came last month's finding that tritium in the well near the old > research and development disposal trenches was at the highest levels ever > recorded on the Hanford site. The fact that other wells nearby showed only > slight levels of contamination was a relief, but only a temporary one. > Norm Buske is an oceanographer and physicist who has conducted radiation > surveys all along the Columbia shore for the Government Accountability > Project, a nonprofit group that supports whistle-blowers. He says his data > show that the Hanford contamination may be moving much more quickly toward > the river than previously believed,through a series of fast-track underground > channels. Already, Buske's Geiger counter readings have documented > elevated levels of strontium-90 in mulberry bushes along the river, and near > salmon nesting areas on the river bottom. The government's preliminary > studies have shown no negative effects on young salmon hatchlings so far. > They say the strontium-90 found in mulberries along the river most likely > came from contaminated soil and not migrating ground water."It gets into the > river and it's into everything: the fish, the food chain. The grapes, the > apples, the cherries, the potatoes," warned Tom Carpenter, the Government > Accountability Project's specialist on Hanford. "But there's a deep sickness > in the whole system out there. The whole purpose of the apparatus at Hanford > is not to find the problem. It's not to fix the problem. It's to assure the > public that there isn't a problem." > > > > ********** > > OBRL News is a product of the non-profit > Orgone Biophysical Research Lab > Greensprings Research and Educational Center > PO Box 1148, Ashland, Oregon 97520 USA > http://www.orgonelab.org <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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