Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday.
Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing."
The tanks, which already are long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.
The U.S. Department of Energy said earlier that liquid levels were decreasing in one of the tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Washington State Governor: 6 Underground Tanks at Hanford Nuclear Reservation Leaking
UPDATE: From AP via ABC News:
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This can't be true. Sierra Club types have told me for years that it's all those evil capitalists that are responsible for the worst pollution.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny because I've been working with contractors (who are working for the Department of Energy) on one small aspect of the cleanup. They basically have no idea of what's going to come out of those tanks when they try to transfer it over miles and miles of pipeline to a treatment facility. They work with all kinds of simulants that might predict what they'll be dealing with.
ReplyDeleteThe great thing for them is that there's no negative consequence to dragging their feet to get the job done. In fact, I think everyone drains more money out of the system by the slow progress.
I went through the same exercise cleaning up MTBE from leaky gasoline storage tanks. We had a UV system that would DESTROY the MTBE by disrupting the molecular bonds.
DeleteBut NOOOO. Nobody wanted that. It was too simple and quick.
What they do is: Pump the contaminated ground water up and through charcoal. Then at night, they would cook the charcoal to release the MTBE into the atmosphere, thus spreading the contaminants far and wide.
This mandated by Cal EPA.
Yes, indeed, our wise overlords (HT:TEW)are here to protect us.
I have no idea if this is true but Alex Jones has said that radioactive waste might get put into silverware.
ReplyDelete"Government to Dispose of Radioactive Waste By Putting It In Our SILVERWARE"
http://www.infowars.com/government-to-dispose-of-radioactive-waste-by-putting-it-in-our-silverware/