The Hanford Nuclear Reservation becomes an American Pop-Icon Amusement Park?

                                       The abandoned city of Pripyat, Russia, near Chernobyl

By Dvija Michael Bertish

It’s already happening elsewhere in the world, something that makes a lot of environmentally conscious folks scratch their heads in confusion – Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, has become a tourist attraction. For $100-$185, people can book private tours or participate in group tours of the Chernobyl disaster site under the guise of ecological curiosity. School groups are welcome!

Twenty-three years after the disaster, the area is uninhabitable, surface water is highly radioactive, and the surrounding forests are still red with radiation sickness. The devastating wildfires in Russia last summer choked Moscow with thick bellowing smoke, and fears were raised that the fire would spread radioactive particulates from the Chernobyl site. Somehow, all of this attracts tourists who want to see the devastation first hand. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl killed tens of thousands, wiped out the City of Pripyat where Chernobyl workers lived, and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Even the local dairy cows produce radioactive milk.

Just before the Chernobyl disaster, the city of Pripyat built a brand new amusement park that now stands desolate amidst the graveyard of broken glass and buildings being overtaken by deformed trees. Tour guides bring visitors to the amusement park, where small patches of grass make Geiger counters go crazy and the tourists are whisked away because the area is suddenly declared to be unclean and unsafe for human occupation by mere tour guides.

At the end of the Chernobyl tour, each visitor had to be scanned for radiation, standing between two pieces of metal with hands placed on the sides of a sensor machine. Remember, this area was once a thriving city, with a nuclear power plant nearby.

This real-life situation at Chernobyl exemplifies what could happen at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and the nearby city of Richland, Washington.

How? If the vitrification plant for High-Level Nuclear Waste has an explosion, or if the High-Level Waste tanks have a major release.

Unthinkable? No. Our federal Energy Department (USDOE) is now designing that plant to accommodate “small” explosions, rather than do the engineering and safety testing to ensure explosions do not occur. The Seattle Times’ front page article (Jan 23, 2011) provides details of how USDOE is proceeding despite concerns raised by numerous outside experts and whistleblowers. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014001657_hanford23m.html

Imagine Disneyland with its brightly painted facades, candy wrappers, flowering baskets, and the never ending score of ‘It’s a Small World’ emitted from loudspeakers. It’s a fantasy land, with costumed attendants busily sweeping up any semblance of refuse from pristine sidewalks, and lines of smitten children taking turns to grab a hug from Mickey Mouse. Disneyland is an American ideal of adventurous fun. No offense to Walt, but it appears his fantasy has been usurped and warped by the US Department of Energy (DOE). Not to add salt to a wound, but the consumer advocacy group Center for Environmental Health tested Disney-themed bags sold at Safeway grocery stores, and found some bags had lead levels as much as 17 times above the federal limits for children's products [Tampa Tribune, Jan 12, 2011]. So yes, even the trusted Disney brand can poison children.

At various public meetings, DOE officials have offered that Hanford will become a national park, open to picnicking and tent camping directly over the footprint of nuclear reactor cores. Of course, DOE contends that the area is clean and has been made safe for the future public landmark on the pristine shores of the Columbia River, despite a vast radioactive plume that is already leaking into the River, where fish in the Hanford Reach are reversing sexes and may become unable to reproduce. DOE officials explain that decommissioned facilities should be made available for tours and museums, the surrounding lands will be made available for industrial redevelopment and maybe agriculture – never mind the 43 miles of unlined trenches leaching Hanford’s discarded toxic trash into the soil and groundwater. And the famous half-baked vitrification plant (that is supposed to magically transform millions of gallons of leaking nuclear sludge from ruptured storage tanks into storable glass logs) is not only years behind schedule and triple the budget at more than $12 billion and rising, but is also physically unstable and may be prone to explosions of radioactive gas.

What a lovely and charming premise for Richland property owners and residents. DOE may as well propose a giant fairy castle to be built at the entrance to Hanford, with fireworks shows going off nightly to the cheering hoards, and hungry kids munching on pink cotton candy. Yes America, the federal government has plans to giftwrap Hanford and hand it back to us as an amusement park where the deer and the antelope play.

In December 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported that a rabbit on the 586 square mile Hanford Site was dumping radioactive poop after having consumed radioactive water that leached from some unidentified nuclear waste heap -- not to mention radioactive mice, tumbleweeds, pocket gophers, pigeons, desert termites, harvester ants, toads, swallows, snakes, badgers, fruit flies, and mud-dauber wasps. Wall Street Journal, Dec. 23, 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019280235026892.html

Contractors found the answer was to shoot the rabbit (as if there was only one rabbit) with a pellet gun and call it good. Maybe they will stuff the corpse, give it a bow-tie and a carrot in its pocket, and put a neon sign over it that reads “The Real Bugs Bunny,” no offense Warner Brothers.

Back to the Hanford Vitrification Plant

At countless public meetings, citizens have repeatedly raised doubts as to whether the vitrification plant will really work. Construction began years before the design was ever completed, and fledgling equipment and processing hasn’t even been tested. Meanwhile, the federal government allows the leaking storage tanks to continue leaking without a backup plan in case the vitrification plant fails, and the radicactive waste has entered the soil and groundwater, which flows to the River. Federal officials have stated publicly that it would be impossible to remove all of the toxic waste from the soil and groundwater, that a cleanup project of this magnitude has never been attempted, and the snail’s pace cleanup is undertaken to protect worker safety and burdensome financial constraints.

With the local flora and fauna already spreading radioactive nuetrons at Hanford, how long would it be before Richland’s sewage facilities introduce volumes of radioactive waste into the environment caused by exposure to Hanford? After all, the city of Richland’s drinking water source is the Columbia River, downstream from the Hanford facility, and radioactive isotopes are measurable in shoreline seeps entering the River at levels well beyond drinking water standards. DOE’s Environmental Impact Analysis projects widespread radioactive contamination throughout the geographic region for thousands of years, and yet the leaking tanks, one of the primary sources of contamination at the site, still sit there. For how long? USDOE convinced Washington State to agree to let it delay emptying the leaky Single Shell Tanks by 22 years – until the year 2040. Until emptied, the contamination under the tanks can’t be cleaned up… but, of course, USDOE does not plan to clean that up. It will be up to us as active citizens to force them to empty the tanks faster, cleanup the leaks and the wastes in those 43 miles of unlined ditches.

On January 22, 2011, the Seattle Times published a duet of articles regarding the subject of the vitrification plant at Hanford:

Big cleanup questions still loom at Hanford http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014001657_hanford23m.html

Will giant mixers keep nuclear waste stable? http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014001657_hanford23m.html

The Seattle Times reports: “But parts of the [vitrification] plant still face risks of bursting into flames, exploding or triggering uncontrolled nuclear-chain reactions, according to project documents, interviews and formal critiques by scientists at other federal agencies…The government's own tests show that equipment may fail or pipes may clog in areas of the plant so hot with nuclear waste that no human or machine could ever get in and make repairs…Fast tracking this project has led to so many late design changes that DOE officials recently claimed the plant was too complex. So they began simplifying the design by scaling back safety measures…For instance, because waste can generate dangerous gases, builders first tried designing and aligning piping systems in ways that prevented fires and mini-explosions. But now, pipes are being designed so that explosions are expected and allowed; plant operators will just have to keep them manageable.”

Yes folks, our world-class Hanford vitrification plant is now being designed to allow explosions of uncontrolled radioactive gas. If not mistaken, this is the same kind of thing that led to the Chernobyl explosion, so the comparison is not far off, and Richland Washington may soon be the American version of Pripyat. Wonder what the Pacific Northwest’s forests will look like in radioactive shades of red?

To make matters worse, an official who spoke up about the potential for explosive disaster at Hanford was fired and forced to file a whistle-blower lawsuit against DOE. Scientists have declared that DOE has grossly underestimated how far a radiation accident could spread at Hanford, but DOE still insists that the public is safe in their hands.

The Seattle Times article notes that official statements include the opinion that the only option is to keep building the vitrification plant on "a leap of faith" that the plant will work. But taking a leap of faith about nuclear safety and radioactive explosions at a government facility is like clapping your hands until Tinkerbell comes back to life. It’s a fool’s errand, and Captain Hook is soon to be swallowed by the Crocodile with the ticking clock in its gullet.

DOE expects us all to have complete and total faith that this untested, unbuilt, undersigned, years late, over budget vitrifcation plant will eventually work so perfectly and never falter or break down, because if it does no human or machine will ever be able to fix it due to the extremely high levels of radioactivity of the waste being processed. REALLY! This plant is the salvation of the western hemisphere’s worst nuclear waste problem? REALLY! If we fall for this, the real world has turned into Disneyland. And if we question DOE’s ethics, we are simply demoted as critics and ushered into the crackpot round file, our concerns ignored.

Suggested Action Steps:

Instead of relying upon blind faith, Heart of America Northwest encourages the following action steps to deal with problems outlined herein. Please contact your Governor, Senators and Representatives with these points:

* Don't delay emptying the leaky High-Level Nucelar Waste Single Shell Tanks by 22 years. Instead, we need to build some new storage tanks, because we can't wait until 2040 to empty tanks or start cleaning up the leaks and deliberate releases under the tanks. Just over a year ago, hundreds of people attended hearings objecting to Washington State’s acceptance of decades of delays in emptying the tanks. Washington State needs to reverse its approval of the delays and begin construction of new holding tanks immediately.

* Stop trying to build the plant without testing the safety and chemical engineering, and reverse the decision that "small" radioactive explosions are acceptable. Congress should bar USDOE from installing the equipment until the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board certifies that the safety plans will work without accepting the possibility of "small" explosions.

* Divert funding away from the vitrification plant to build new storage tanks. This will provide time to properly test the chemical and safety engineering of the vitrification plant to see if it will actually work. Why spend billions on something that isn’t the best known science at this point?

* Demand that USDOE stop trying to plan to dump more waste at Hanford when it won't and can't cleanup the existing contamination. (Yes, while delaying emptying of the Single Shell High-Level Nuclear Waste Tanks until 2040, and proposing NOT to cleanup the leaks - USDOE still insists that it will use Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump after 2020!).

Support Heart of American Northwest’s federal lawsuit to overturn USDOE's decision to use Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump by donating on line at our website www.hoanw.org where you will find more resources for contacting officials and to volunteer.

The Next Generation brings you Hanford Awareness on YouTube

 

Students capture the knowledge of Hanford and bring awareness to the history, current clean-up, and effects on environment and health through the use of this short video. I am impressed by its creativity in telling the story and facts of Hanford while inviting the diverse stakeholders in the Seattle area to talk about their concerns. It's critical that more innovative avenues be used to tell the story of Hanford, especially in the digital age, through visual and video means. Thanks to the hard work of these UW students in putting this video together!

Also a few links to YouTube channels featuring Hanford:
http://www.youtube.com/hanfordsite/
http://www.youtube.com/user/HanfordVitPlant
http://www.youtube.com/user/talkingsticktv
- Posted by Shannon Smith, HOANW Volunteer Coordinator and Field Organizer

What's the Penalty and Profit of the Washington Group Int'l Cleanup job?

At USDOE site in New York, a USDOE contractor, Washington Group International (a URS subsidiary), directed workers to cut corners in order to meet timeline for cleanup of highly contaminated building – leading to large scale, massive,  radioactive contamination release to Mohawk River and over 3 acres. The penalty? Just being docked $1.8 million of possible profit payments out of $7.6 million. USDOE still paid the company $5.8 million in profit on the contract for the year – despite deliberate conduct that was likely a criminal violation of environmental laws. Washington Group is also a major Hanford contractor. This is an illustration of the need for oversight, contract reform and prosecution of environmental crimes at USDOE sites. 

Posted by Gerry Pollet, Heart of America Northwest

Knolls leaks cost $1.8M
Department of Energy penalizes atomic cleanup firm for air, water releases
By BRIAN NEARING Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 5, 2011

NISKAYUNA -- The federal government has hit the private company in charge of the cleanup of radiation-tainted buildings at Knolls Atomic Power Labs with a $1.8 million penalty because of poor performance that
caused radiation leaks into the air and the Mohawk River.

The U.S. Department of Energy took that action last month against URS, which has been running the cleanup for about two years as part of a $69 million contract to demolish two Cold War-era research buildings.

DOE spokesman Bill Taylor said Tuesday the penalty would come out of the potential $7.6 million maximum bonus that the company could earn under that contract, which is a "cost plus" contract. Cost plus means that DOE pays URS for all its expenses to run the cleanup, and then provides an additional payment as an incentive for good work.

Withholding part of such bonuses is "one tool DOE uses to hold its contractors accountable for poor performance," he said. Taylor said DOE has held back $1.5 million so far from URS, and will hold back the rest from future payments.

Read the rest of the story here

The Future Voices for Hanford: Are They Listening?

This past quarter, I was fortunate enough to take a class at the University of Washington that focused on the environmental issues and public policies of the Hanford nuclear site. The class gave a holistic overview of the history of Hanford as part of the Manhattan Project up through the Cold War and present day issues. Throughout the class we had numerous speakers come in to give us their perspectives on Hanford and the environmental and human rights policies involved. At the beginning of the class, it was astounding how few people, even at the college level, even knew where Hanford was, let alone the fact that it is the single largest public works project in the U.S. and the most contaminated site in the western hemisphere. Therefore, when it came time to design my final project for the class my goal was education. 

A small group of my peers and I put together a presentation for high school students on the history of the Hanford site, who is affected and the cleanup options. We decided to present to four different classes in the Greater Seattle area. (two at Roosevelt High School in Seattle and two at Juanita High School in Kirkland.) Towards the end of the presentations we always included a call to action where we told the students, "You are in high school and that means you are approaching voting age. Now is the time where you need to start learning about issues going on in your country and in your state and deciding how you feel about them. You also need to find out how the people who speak for you, Senators and Representatives, feel about issues too." We made sure to give them the email and office addresses of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and encouraged the students to get involved (part of which is pictured to the left). 

Prior to our visits to the schools we had some preconceived notions about how effective our presentations would be with the short attention spans that many high school students seem to have. As we expected, not many of the students had any clue what Hanford was, but much to our surprise, we did not simply talk to rooms full of glassy eyed kids counting the seconds until lunch. When they realized how close Hanford is and how serious it is, most of the students seemed surprised and even outraged. That is exactly what we were looking for:  passion. We were thrilled that students had questions or at points were even confused as to why cleanup had been neglected for so long and why government organizations were being dishonest about their intentions. These students are the future of Hanford and they care.

I would without a doubt call our visits to the local high schools a success. However, we are only a handful of informed college students and we only spread the word to a few classrooms full of students. Hopefully they will spread the word and do something with the passion that they seemed to be full of during class. But how can we reach more people? The contamination at Hanford will outlast you and me and even the students we reached. Future generations will inherit this problem and they need to know about how it will effect their planet and their people. How can we make sure that everyone knows and has an opinion about Hanford? Knowledge dies if it is not passed on and we need to make sure that Hanford's lethal legacy becomes a call to action and an inspiration for change.

Written by Stephanie Carson. Senior at the University of Washington studying Medical Anthropology and Global Health and Sociology, and Heart of America Northwest volunteer.

What Weighs 300 Tons, Moves 20 mph, Takes 4 Days to get to Hanford, and Heats Nuclear Waste over 2,100 Degrees?

Migrating all the way from the Peterson Inc. construction plant located in Ogden, Utah, the 125-ton vitrification plant melter concluded its 800-mile journey to its new home at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant. It is the second and final melter to be assembled at Hanford to begin operations on Bechtel’s plant that will be the world’s largest radioactive waste treatment plan for the United States Department of Energy. What has been termed the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization plant aims to reduce and process Hanford’s 53 million gallons of radioactive waste.

Vitrification proves to be a bright possibility in reducing the massive amount of chemical and radioactive waste currently stored at Hanford. By combining the waste with glass-forming materials to over 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, the mixture can be poured into steel canisters for permanent storage. Once in the glass form, the waste is stable and much less reactive.

With an estimated completed construction date of 2016 and fully operational date of 2019, we have several years until we can see the vitrification plant’s possibility. This proposal sheds hope for a possible step in the right direction for fully cleaning up the hazardous waste stored in Hanford. The Hanford Site has 177 tanks of liquid waste, with 67 of them suspected to have leaked in the past, and only 28 double-shell tanks. With a history of attempts at storing this hazardous waste in our Washington state, the ability to do something with what is a dangerous threat to our environment is promising. The repeating history of Hanford is ignoring the danger the nuclear waste poses on the environment, and leaving the responsibility of cleaning up to future generations. While we cannot take back what has been done in the past, we can still make sure these next generations would not have to deal with what we continue to avoid. We should start identifying this waste, and figuring out the best means of cleaning it up. I fervently hope in the cleanup of Hanford, especially the highly radioactive waste, and I believe vitrification can speed this along.

This post was written by Paul Glantz, a Medical Anthropology and Global Health Junior at the University of Washington and a volunteer with Heart of America Northwest.

Join HOANW to Petition WA State for a Cleanup of Commercial Radioactive Waste Dumps at Hanford

You can take action TODAY by signing the petition asking Gov. Gregoire and WA Dept. of Ecology for clean-up! Please take a minute to sign - below is more information about the potential effects of this commercial radioactive waste dump.

"Contamination from Hanford's radioactive wastes continues to pose risks to the safety of food, fish and people.

Release of radioactive contamination from the site is leaching into the soil and groundwater — endangering the surrounding farmland and water used for irrigation, as well as the health of local citizens and wildlife.

Recently a leak was discovered just hundreds of feet from the Columbia River and less than a mile from the city of Richland's drinking water pumphouse — with contamination levels 10 to 20 times higher than those considered lethal from only one hour of exposure.

What can you do to help prevent future disasters? Sign this petition to Governor Gregoire and the Washington Dept. of Ecology calling for a proper investigation and cleanup of the unlined, leaking commercial radioactive waste dump in the center of Hanford."

Blowing the Whistle at Hanford

The UW anthropology class recently listened to the story of Hanford whistle-blowers - Ed and Cindy Bricker. Although both worked at Hanford, Ed - a third-generation Hanford worker - was a nuclear technician and Cindy worked in public affairs. Their story is very interesting, and it is helpful gaining a perspective of Hanford from those who worked there.
Before learning more about this interesting couple, it's nice to refresh - or in case you did not previously know - on some of the logistics of Hanford. DuPont was one of the early contractors at Hanford. Fuel elements were reacted with solvents to extract Plutonium and Uranium. The set-up of Hanford involves the facilities being far enough apart from one another so that if something were to occur at one facility, there would be a minimum effect on other facilities. Because of this separation, there is also little worker interaction. From a sociological viewpoint, this seems to be put in place purposefully in order to maintain secrecy in Hanford. However, there is some connection in that the Plutonium and Uranium were removed to other facilities after running through processes i.e. the Plutonium Plant. Another plant was PUREX (Plutonium Uranium Extraction). At the time, it was thought that technology could solve anything.
Despite this structure, there have been issues of safety, as I'm sure we have all heard. Ed Bricker gave an example of his father being exposed to radiation coming at him; he managed to hide behind batteries, which blocked him from radiation. Before, Ed's father was pro-Hanford. His feelings in that regard did not necessarily change, but after this incident he was more involved with union workers.
Cindy is also a Richland native. She says that Richland natives follow the three H's: High School (Richland High School), Hanford, and Heatherhouse (a retirement home). Growing up, people were not worried about Hanford, but they were concerned that they could be bombed because of Hanford's existence. However, she added that Hanford is a self-sustaining area, and is insulated from the recession even now.
During his time working at Hanford, Ed began noticing safety issues. His wife didn't believe him, insisting she would know if there were any. Cindy was working in public affairs, after all. However, after strange occurrences began happening, she realized that he had been right. For example, someone tampered with Ed’s air hose, and he barely had time to rush to a safe room to gasp for air. If Ed complained, he could lose his badge, which would mean losing his job, going bankrupt, and then inability to work in a federal job again.
Ed eventually began reporting the issues to Congress and the press. He had a network set up with other employees to gain more information as well. Eventually, it was found out that Ed was the one leaking information, and Hanford investigators tried to see what he was up to. The investigators would listen to Ed's phone conversations. His son even noticed a red light on the ceiling in their house, which was found to be from a listening device that one can use from outside. There was even a Bricker War Room at Hanford, in which articles were posted. After Congress found out that Ed was being tapped, they finally put their foot down and furiously addressed the issue.
Now, Ed is a bus driver, and he is content with that. Although Ed's whistle-blowing caused tension between him and his coworkers as well as his supervisors, he stuck to his beliefs. It was amazing gaining the perspective of a previous Hanford worker. It is remarkable that one man was able to get the government involved in this issue. As we can see, it can be important to stick to one’s values even in the face of losing a job. I was surprised by the magnitude of danger to workers in Hanford besides simply being exposed to radiation. The narrative also gave me more of an awareness of the extent to which the DOE will work to remain secretive. I’d like to leave you with a question. It is not intended to be rhetorical, and I would like you to consider it as objectively as possible: After learning about Ed, do you feel you can put your trust in the DOE, especially in regards to their accountability and honesty in the clean-up of Hanford?

This post was written by Nazila Dabestani, a Medical Anthropology and Global Health Senior at University of Washington affiliated with Heart of America Northwest.