Thankfully, Heart of America Northwest led efforts to shut down building 324 and have it cleaned out and removed. As late as 2008, nuclear industry backers and USDOE proposed using the 324 Building for “reprocessing” High-Level Nuclear Waste. In the late 1990s and until 2001, USDOE was promoting use of 324 Building in support of the restart of the FFTF Nuclear Reactor, and again we led opposition pointing to past contamination and risk from Building 324. However, we never expected that leaks to soil were at levels more than ten times the level which will kill every individual in an hour.
In the early 1990s this building and all others in Hanford’s 300 Area dumped their untreated liquid wastes out a sewer line into a long ditch paralleling the Columbia River 800 feet away. The high radiation is apparently due to leaks from the sump for the sewer in Building 324. Heart of America Northwest successfully sued and organized to close the sewer and end dumping of untreated liquid wastes. Sadly, Washington Ecology and EPA sided with USDOE back then, and actually opposed our efforts to shut down the dumping of untreated liquid wastes.
Now, the question is how could USDOE have promoted use of the building for years without knowing about radiation levels so high in the soil under the building that they would kill in minutes??? What is needed Now: an emergency cleanup effort is needed due to proximity to the River and public, and an investigation as to how this was ignored or not found for years. This is going to be very expensive because of the incredible risk from the gamma radiation, and shielding needed. However, this comes at a time when Congressional pressure and the President’s announced response is to cut Hanford Clean-Up budgets in 2012. The waste should not be disposed at Hanford in landfills, it is so hot it should be treated as High-Level Waste, which is what it originated as.
- Gerry Pollet, Heart of America Northwest
Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010
Highly contaminated soil found at Hanford
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
HANFORD — Workers have found a nasty surprise beneath a Hanford building just north of Richland -- highly contaminated soil from an undiscovered leak.
"This is extremely high radiation. Nothing else compares in the river corridor," said Mark French, Department of Energy project director for environmental cleanup in the river corridor, the 75 square miles of Hanford along the Columbia River.
Radioactivity has been measured at 8,900 rad per hour, which would be about 10 times the lethal dose on contact, according to Hanford officials. The building where the leak was found is about 1,000 feet from the Columbia River.
Read more from the Tri-City Herald here
18 November 2010
07 November 2010
Radioactive Rabbit Killed at Hanford... Elmer Fudd at work
Where’s Elmer Fudd when we need him??? This story on another radioactive rabbit at Hanford has made news across the US. Heart of America Northwest notes: Radioactive Rabbit killed at Hanford was near town and the Columbia River… It is not likely that it was the only one or that it didn’t move over a wide area. It’s hardly the first, and won’t be the last. Heart of America Northwest has two concerns:
1) There’s a significant source of radioactive contamination in the vicinity which may be running into the Columbia via groundwater, or exposing birds (including owls and hawks which eat rabbits), and blowing into the air.
2) This is a warning about USDOE’s unwillingness to plan to remove wastes from 44 miles of unlined radioactive waste burial grounds and many more miles of ditches into which USDOE dumped liquid wastes. Picture three lanes of interstate highway running 44 miles. Now picture this is a ditch with waste fifty feet deep, and then try to justify never cleaning it up. Leaving waste will expose future generations to unacceptably high radiation risks – especially the Tribes who want to exercise their treaty rights to use Hanford’s resources (e.g.,fish,hunt gather plants).
Radioactive rabbit trapped, killed at Hanford
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS November 5, 2010 (Seattle times, Seattle P-I.com)
RICHLAND, Wash. -- A radioactive rabbit was trapped on the Hanford nuclear reservation, but there is no sign any people were exposed to the animal.
Washington state Health Department workers with the Office of Radiation Protection have been searching for contaminated rabbit droppings. None have been found in areas accessible to the public, regional director Earl Fordham said Thursday.
Officials suspect the rabbit sipped some water left from the recent demolition of a Cold War-era building used in the production of nuclear weapons, the Tri-City Herald reported Friday.
Contaminated animals occasionally are found at the nuclear reservation, but more often they are in the center of Hanford, far from town.
The rabbit trapped at the 300 Area caught the Health Department's attention because it was close enough to the site's boundaries to potentially come in contact with people - if it had been caught by a dog or if its droppings were deposited in an area open to the public.
Workers first found contaminated rabbit droppings last week in the 300 Area, said Todd Nelson, spokesman for Washington Closure Hanford, the Department of Energy contractor cleaning up Hanford.
Several rabbits were trapped and the one was found to be highly contaminated with radioactive cesium. It was killed and disposed as radioactive waste, he said Friday. Routine monitoring for radioactive droppings continues.
Read the rest of the article
1) There’s a significant source of radioactive contamination in the vicinity which may be running into the Columbia via groundwater, or exposing birds (including owls and hawks which eat rabbits), and blowing into the air.
2) This is a warning about USDOE’s unwillingness to plan to remove wastes from 44 miles of unlined radioactive waste burial grounds and many more miles of ditches into which USDOE dumped liquid wastes. Picture three lanes of interstate highway running 44 miles. Now picture this is a ditch with waste fifty feet deep, and then try to justify never cleaning it up. Leaving waste will expose future generations to unacceptably high radiation risks – especially the Tribes who want to exercise their treaty rights to use Hanford’s resources (e.g.,fish,hunt gather plants).
Radioactive rabbit trapped, killed at Hanford
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS November 5, 2010 (Seattle times, Seattle P-I.com)
RICHLAND, Wash. -- A radioactive rabbit was trapped on the Hanford nuclear reservation, but there is no sign any people were exposed to the animal.
Washington state Health Department workers with the Office of Radiation Protection have been searching for contaminated rabbit droppings. None have been found in areas accessible to the public, regional director Earl Fordham said Thursday.
Officials suspect the rabbit sipped some water left from the recent demolition of a Cold War-era building used in the production of nuclear weapons, the Tri-City Herald reported Friday.
Contaminated animals occasionally are found at the nuclear reservation, but more often they are in the center of Hanford, far from town.
The rabbit trapped at the 300 Area caught the Health Department's attention because it was close enough to the site's boundaries to potentially come in contact with people - if it had been caught by a dog or if its droppings were deposited in an area open to the public.
Workers first found contaminated rabbit droppings last week in the 300 Area, said Todd Nelson, spokesman for Washington Closure Hanford, the Department of Energy contractor cleaning up Hanford.
Several rabbits were trapped and the one was found to be highly contaminated with radioactive cesium. It was killed and disposed as radioactive waste, he said Friday. Routine monitoring for radioactive droppings continues.
Read the rest of the article
10 August 2010
Hot news: We file suit to overturn USDOE's decision to use Hanford as a National Radioactive Waste Dump!
Story running in the Tri-City Herald: "Heart of America files suit over sending waste to Hanford."
Story running in the Tri-City Herald: "Heart of America files suit over sending waste to Hanford."
This week, Heart of America Northwest filed suit in federal court to stop the use of Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump. The United States Department of Energy continues plans to import and bury 3 million cubic feet of radioactive and toxic wastes from nuclear weapons and energy facilities in landfills near the Columbia River at Hanford, despite their own study showing that this action will contaminate the Columbia River and result in numerous cancer deaths over the next hundred years (and even through ten thousand years).
Thousands of truckloads of radioactive waste would go through Portland, Spokane and other communitites. Studies show that transporting radioactive waste can also cause fatal cancers in communities along the routes, even if there are no accidents.
We filed the suit because Washington State has not barred the United States Department of Energy (USDOE) from dumping more waste at Hanford in the Hanford Cleanup Agreement (aka Tri-Party Agreement) and/or in state permits.
We have also found that Washington State allowed USDOE to open a landfill for radioactive and toxic chemical wastes in the 1990's without a permit or public hearings.
Earlier in 2010, we led the effort to turn out hundreds of people in Washington and Oregon to comment on USDOE's new environmental impact statement. In the document, USDOE's own analysis of their plan to import 3 million cubic feet of waste shows cancer risks exceeding 10% for people who would use the Columbia River or Hanford's groundwater as drinking water in the future.
Despite this harrowing revelation, USDOE refused to withdraw the 2004 decision designating Hanford to receive these wastes, so we are forced to go to court.
In July, the New York Times quoted us in an article highlighting Robert Alvarez's study documenting that there is almost three times more Plutonium in the soil at Hanford than USDOE previously estimated.
Our lawsuit comes at a time when USDOE proposes dumping more waste instead of removing and cleaning up the wastes already at Hanford - in leaking, unlined landfills and ditches.
***
Please contact the Governor of Oregon and/or Washington and urge them to join us in suing USDOE to stop their plans to use Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump.***
HUGE thank you's to our Seattle University and University of Washington Law School externs Jessica Dales, Adam Woodford, Alec Osenbach, Abe Kaul; and Gonzaga University School of Law Environmental Law Clinic Director Mike Chappell and extern Sarah Minkler for all of their hard work on the suit!
22 July 2010
Hanford and Yucca Mountain add heat to the Senate race
Elections are drawing near, and the competition is radioactive. Washington incumbent Patty Murray and challenger Dino Rossi are going head to head over nuclear waste - each focusing on proving that they support reopening Yucca Mountain more.
But beyond the political issue, we at HOANW see problems with reopening Yucca, the Nevada nuclear waste repository recently put on hold by the Obama administration.
Believe me, it's hard to even extend beyond the political issue. Obama supports Nevada senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for whom the closure of a nuclear repository within his state would be a big boost to his election campaign. Washington State politicians seem to be following an Anywhere-But-Hanford mindset, appealing to our citizens by saying "Not In Our Backyard" -- but they simultaneously ignore key facts that should influence this highly crucial process.
We have a predominant issue with Yucca Mountain: the U.S. Department of Energy would be permitted to dramatically lower health standards to levels below the national requirements. If allowed there, the same policies could be applied at Hanford in the future. At Yucca, this would create a harmful excess that would extend 18 km around the repository, leaving waste levels that the EPA and NRC predict are high enough to cause fatal cancer in over 3 out of 10,000 exposed adults (the national standards are set at 1 out of 10,000).
The precedent that continuing Yucca Mountain sets does not bode well for our Hanford Nuclear Waste Site. Groundwater, drinking water, and cancer-causing agent standards exist for a reason, and permitting the USDOE to make exceptions harms all affected communities.
Yucca, like Hanford, is near farms and families. It lies only 12 miles away from Amargosa Valley, a farming community that provides milk across the entire southwest.
Also like Hanford, the federal decision at Yucca will affect Native Americans whose land in the area is protected by national treaties. The Western Shoshone Nation is protected by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, and violating this protection would put this community at enormous risk from exposure to nuclear waste.
Whether or not Yucca Mountain opens, its capacity would not be large enough to accomodate all of Hanford's wastes intended for a deep geologic repository. "Most of Hanford's High-Level Nuclear Waste has never been planned to go to Yucca Mountain," our executive director Gerry Pollet says. After the opening of Hanford's vitrification plant, 90% of the vitrified waste is planned to stay at Hanford, while the remaining 10% will require a whole new repository, as Yucca Mountain's capacity will by then be fully filled.
Cleanup needs to happen. But cleanup needs to happen without sacrificing health standards, Native American treaties, and food safety regulation.
The senators have invited nuclear waste into their electoral competition, and it certainly is a hot spot guaranteed to reel in votes. But we hope Washingtonians will consider the broader scope, and urge politicians to acknowledge the more complicated factors that should be affecting their decisions.
But beyond the political issue, we at HOANW see problems with reopening Yucca, the Nevada nuclear waste repository recently put on hold by the Obama administration.
Believe me, it's hard to even extend beyond the political issue. Obama supports Nevada senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for whom the closure of a nuclear repository within his state would be a big boost to his election campaign. Washington State politicians seem to be following an Anywhere-But-Hanford mindset, appealing to our citizens by saying "Not In Our Backyard" -- but they simultaneously ignore key facts that should influence this highly crucial process.
We have a predominant issue with Yucca Mountain: the U.S. Department of Energy would be permitted to dramatically lower health standards to levels below the national requirements. If allowed there, the same policies could be applied at Hanford in the future. At Yucca, this would create a harmful excess that would extend 18 km around the repository, leaving waste levels that the EPA and NRC predict are high enough to cause fatal cancer in over 3 out of 10,000 exposed adults (the national standards are set at 1 out of 10,000).
The precedent that continuing Yucca Mountain sets does not bode well for our Hanford Nuclear Waste Site. Groundwater, drinking water, and cancer-causing agent standards exist for a reason, and permitting the USDOE to make exceptions harms all affected communities.
Yucca, like Hanford, is near farms and families. It lies only 12 miles away from Amargosa Valley, a farming community that provides milk across the entire southwest.
Also like Hanford, the federal decision at Yucca will affect Native Americans whose land in the area is protected by national treaties. The Western Shoshone Nation is protected by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, and violating this protection would put this community at enormous risk from exposure to nuclear waste.
Whether or not Yucca Mountain opens, its capacity would not be large enough to accomodate all of Hanford's wastes intended for a deep geologic repository. "Most of Hanford's High-Level Nuclear Waste has never been planned to go to Yucca Mountain," our executive director Gerry Pollet says. After the opening of Hanford's vitrification plant, 90% of the vitrified waste is planned to stay at Hanford, while the remaining 10% will require a whole new repository, as Yucca Mountain's capacity will by then be fully filled.
Cleanup needs to happen. But cleanup needs to happen without sacrificing health standards, Native American treaties, and food safety regulation.
The senators have invited nuclear waste into their electoral competition, and it certainly is a hot spot guaranteed to reel in votes. But we hope Washingtonians will consider the broader scope, and urge politicians to acknowledge the more complicated factors that should be affecting their decisions.
14 July 2010
Gerry Pollet to Testify for Blue Ribbon Commission Today!
We are excited to see the testimonial of our own executive director, Gerry Pollet, who has been a passionate and indefatigable leader in Hanford cleanup, before President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission today at 4:20 PST.
President Obama has sought to close Yucca Mountain, the Nevada repository constructed for importing waste from Hanford and other nuclear waste sites. Today, his team visits Hanford, WA, to examine the nuclear waste area and consider the opinions of Hanford experts in their decision.
The commission is interested in exploring alternatives to the Yucca Mountain repository.
Mr. Pollet will present to the commission several key concerns over Hanford's capacity, waste disposal, and detriments of reprocessing this afternoon.
He will explain that the vitrification plant, which would combine waste and glass to form a more easily stored solid, would produce more than could be stored at Yucca Mountain even if it were to open according to schedule. As such, Hanford needs long-term, on-site storage for vitrified products.
Mr. Pollet will explain that this will be needed regardless of Yucca Mountain's status, due to the large quantities of vitrified waste which Hanford would not be able to currently accomodate without increased health and environmental detriment.
Mr. Pollet will also address the concerns over the vitrification plant's capacity. Slated to open in 2019, the plant is currently $8 billion over budget. The capacity will handle only 50% of the 54 million gallons of High-Level Nuclear Waste.
The Department of Energy recommends vitrifying Low Activity Waste as well; this will create releases that will exceed health and water standards of the Columbia River.
Mr. Pollet will emphasize that the capacity of Hanford land to withhold nuclear waste has already been overwhelmed, and contains pre-1970 waste with no plan for removal. He will point out the counterproductive practice of the USDOE's self-regulation, which prevents accurate and effective decisionmaking in regards to waste disposal.
Finally, he will discuss how reprocessing in fact creates enormous quantities of nuclear waste. It created the 54 million gallons of High-Level Nuclear Waste currently sitting in Hanford tanks, with no plan of action for disposal, and will only create more hazardous material if it is chosen as a plan of action.
Check out Gerry's speech this afternoon at 4:20 p.m. P.S.T.! His presentation hopefully will influence the decision of the presidential blue ribbon commission and help Hanford get the "Clean Up First" treatment that we support.
President Obama has sought to close Yucca Mountain, the Nevada repository constructed for importing waste from Hanford and other nuclear waste sites. Today, his team visits Hanford, WA, to examine the nuclear waste area and consider the opinions of Hanford experts in their decision.
The commission is interested in exploring alternatives to the Yucca Mountain repository.
Mr. Pollet will present to the commission several key concerns over Hanford's capacity, waste disposal, and detriments of reprocessing this afternoon.
He will explain that the vitrification plant, which would combine waste and glass to form a more easily stored solid, would produce more than could be stored at Yucca Mountain even if it were to open according to schedule. As such, Hanford needs long-term, on-site storage for vitrified products.
Mr. Pollet will explain that this will be needed regardless of Yucca Mountain's status, due to the large quantities of vitrified waste which Hanford would not be able to currently accomodate without increased health and environmental detriment.
Mr. Pollet will also address the concerns over the vitrification plant's capacity. Slated to open in 2019, the plant is currently $8 billion over budget. The capacity will handle only 50% of the 54 million gallons of High-Level Nuclear Waste.
The Department of Energy recommends vitrifying Low Activity Waste as well; this will create releases that will exceed health and water standards of the Columbia River.
Mr. Pollet will emphasize that the capacity of Hanford land to withhold nuclear waste has already been overwhelmed, and contains pre-1970 waste with no plan for removal. He will point out the counterproductive practice of the USDOE's self-regulation, which prevents accurate and effective decisionmaking in regards to waste disposal.
Finally, he will discuss how reprocessing in fact creates enormous quantities of nuclear waste. It created the 54 million gallons of High-Level Nuclear Waste currently sitting in Hanford tanks, with no plan of action for disposal, and will only create more hazardous material if it is chosen as a plan of action.
Check out Gerry's speech this afternoon at 4:20 p.m. P.S.T.! His presentation hopefully will influence the decision of the presidential blue ribbon commission and help Hanford get the "Clean Up First" treatment that we support.
12 July 2010
Coverage of Hanford and Heart of America Northwest in the New York Times!This weekend, a Sunday article in the New York Times quoted Gerry Pollet, Heart of America Northwest's Executive Director, on the Department of Energy's dramatic underestimates of the amount of plutonium in wastes at Hanford. Read the whole article: "A New Analysis Triples U.S. Plutonium Waste Figures.
Today (July 12, 2010) the Times' "Green Blog" covered Gerry's upcoming testimony to President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future on July 14th:
A Watchdog’s Warning on Nuclear Waste
This week, a blue-ribbon commission on nuclear waste established to seek alternatives to Yucca will hold two days of hearings near Hanford. And one of the experts giving testimony will be Gerry Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, which describes itself as a watchdog group focused on Hanford.
Mr. Pollet’s prepared testimony argues that Hanford has deeper problems than the possible demise of Yucca Mountain. Even if Yucca had opened as planned 10 years ago, it would not have enough space for all of Hanford’s wastes, he argues. The Energy Department is trying to build a factory at Yucca that will take liquid wastes and mix them with molten glass to produce a solid, as a factory at another bomb plant in South Carolina is already doing. But at the moment, there is no final resting place for these “vitrified” wastes.
“Long-term on-site storage capacity for vitrified wastes has always been needed, along with a second deep geologic repository for high-level nuclear wastes,’’ his prepared testimony says.
Heart of America’s main argument is that wastes already buried or dumped at Hanford will, by the government’s own projections, begin turning up in the Columbia River or in underground water supplies at levels hundreds of times higher than drinking water standards in centuries and millenniums to come, and that with no plan in place to clean up that material, the department should not bury any more.
But the group had a message more relevant to the blue-ribbon commission. The panel is studying whether the volume of used reactor fuel could be reduced and the longevity of its radioactive materials cut, by reprocessing it – that is, running it through chemical processes to retrieve materials that could be put into new reactors as fuel.
Heart of America’s argument is that the activity that produced the Hanford wastes was quite similar to this, with uranium from reactors chopped up to retrieve the plutonium created as a side-effect of nuclear fission. The lesson, Mr. Pollet warns, is that “reprocessing creates vast amounts of liquid high-level nuclear wastes.’’
09 July 2010
The next comment period...
Any given day of the year, there's usually at least one aspect of Hanford cleanup that the public can chime in on, which is one of the reasons why we're so busy at HOANW!
Through July 22, you can submit your comments on the proposed extension to an apatite barrier along the Columbia River (in Hanford's 100-N area) to reduce the flow of Strontium-90 into the River. Generally, we think this is a good idea, but we have a few concerns. Check out our new factsheet for more information, and submit your comments to 100NRPP@rl.gov by July 22nd!
Strontium-90 (a radioactive fission product) contamination of the groundwater at Hanford's 100-N area along the Columbia River. The federal Drinking Water Standard for Strontium-90 is 8 pCi/L, and the area shaded red is over 1,000 times the standard. Image from the 2008 Hanford Site Groundwater Monitoring Report
Through July 22, you can submit your comments on the proposed extension to an apatite barrier along the Columbia River (in Hanford's 100-N area) to reduce the flow of Strontium-90 into the River. Generally, we think this is a good idea, but we have a few concerns. Check out our new factsheet for more information, and submit your comments to 100NRPP@rl.gov by July 22nd!
Strontium-90 (a radioactive fission product) contamination of the groundwater at Hanford's 100-N area along the Columbia River. The federal Drinking Water Standard for Strontium-90 is 8 pCi/L, and the area shaded red is over 1,000 times the standard. Image from the 2008 Hanford Site Groundwater Monitoring Report
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