Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Our Nuclear Legacy

From the Executive Director: I am honored this evening to welcome a new member and contributor to our organization. A great progressive, Marylin Olds, has joined NPI as a Contributing Editor. This is her first post on the Official Blog, with many more to follow in the coming weeks and months.

As a kid growing up in the Yakima Valley, a favorite way for us to survive the desert summers was to head to the Columbia River.

At the time we had no idea how closely our lives came into contact with the world's most prolific plutonium production site, our own Hanford. Who among us noticed that the top-secret Manhattan Project had roosted in our own backyards years earlier?

Folks knew less back then about radioactive waste. If the government understood more than we did, they didn't care.

Nine plutonium production reactors were built along 51 miles of the Columbia so that its fresh cold water could more easily cool the highly toxic process. What happened to the contaminated river water afterwards? It was kept in holding tanks for six hours and then piped right back into the river.

Hanford proudly supplied the plutonium core for the atomic numb in 1945 called "Fat Man". It was dropped over Nagasaki searing and disintegrating more than 115,000 men, women and children.

The goal was to force Japan to their knees and end WWII. Nagasaki's destruction was a resounding success.

The Cold War brought frantic mass production of plutonium, this time as a hypothetical deterrence to the Soviet Union in the form of nuclear weapons stockpiling. Hanford performed its part admirably, providing two-thirds of all American plutonium created.

Today Congress and the Dept. of Energy (DOE) are treating the Hanford waste cleanup like an aging racehorse. When her chances looked good enough to bring her government glory, she was ridden hard and put away wet. Now that there's no glory left in the eyes of her government beholders, they try to pretend she doesn't exist.

Sixty-seven confirmed leaks of toxic underground waste at Hanford have (years ago) leaked through the earth and reached ground water. Gravity is moving a one million gallon plume of radioactive toxins toward the Columbia River.

In 1989, the Tri-Party Agreement was signed by the DOE, the EPA and the state Dept. of Ecology to legally establish Hanford cleanup timelines and guidelines. The DOE signed on as managers and agreed to clean up 99% of the waste.

The DOE has shown their lack of commitment to the project by allowing substandard design and construction practices on the new vitrification plant. The vit plant is where the toxic waste will be melted with glass for supposedly safer storage.

The DOE has used courtrooms to skirt actions and has even tried to re-label some toxic wastes as less harmful than they are currently labeled.

Construction of the Hanford vit plant is now on hold at 30% completion since last summer because of earthquake design flaws. The plant cost estimate is now at $11.3 billion (triple the original estimate) and the projected start of operation is set at 2018 (a delay of seven years).

The longer the cleanup takes, the more possible the toxic plume will reach the Columbia.

Most of us have realized by this time that the DOE is more interested in new nuclear production plants than in getting yesterday's toxic catastrophes cleaned up according to its 1989 agreement. It's up to us to keep them in line.

The Columbia is the lifeline of the entire Pacific Northwest. Fishing, farm irrigation, recreational use are all jeopardized.

Congressional committees are showing a frustrated lack of enthusiasm at continuing the funding of Hanford's vit plant. The project could be deserted, even as our politicians are fighting fisticuffs for the money.

Hanford remains the most contaminated site in North America. Will there ever be a technology allowing radioactive toxic waste to be safely stored? No one knows for sure. Until they do, why should we consider promoting new nuclear power sites?

For more on Hanford, see such watchdog sites as: Heart of American Northwest, Hanford Watch, and the Government Accountability Project.

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