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Update.

Radioactive waste may be leaking into soil at Hanford | www.kirotv.com

An underground tank holding some of the worst radioactive waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site might be leaking into the soil.

The U.S. Energy Department said workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation detected higher radioactivity levels under tank AY-102 during a routine inspection Thursday.

Spokeswoman Lori Gamache says the department has notified Washington officials and is investigating the leak further. AY-102 is one of Hanford's tanks with two walls, which were installed years ago when single-shell tanks began leaking.

Some of the worst liquid in those tanks was pumped into the sturdier double-shell tanks.

The tanks are now beyond their intended life span. The Energy Department announced last year that AY-102 was leaking between its two walls, but it said then that no waste had escaped.

Gov. Jay Inslee released a statement Friday on the leak:

"Last night I received a call from United States Energy Secretary Moniz informing me that the US Department of Energy discovered what appears to be an elevated contamination level reading in the leak detection pit outside and adjacent to the Hanford double-shell tank AY-102. This is most disturbing news for Washington. It is not clear yet whether that contamination is coming directly from the outer shell of the AY-102 but it must be treated with the utmost seriousness. The discovery was made during a routine pumping outside the tank when pumps are also surveyed for radioactivity.

"The Secretary informed me that USDOE has convened an engineering analysis team to verify the source of the contamination through additional sampling and video inspection. It's our understanding that this process could take several days.

"Our state experts confirm that there is no immediate public health threat. Given the relatively early detection of this potential leak, the river is not at immediate risk of contamination should it be determined that a leak has occurred outside the tank. The Secretary assured me that USDOE will respond swiftly and with all actions necessary to determine the condition of the AY-102.

"Prior to receiving this news from Secretary last night, he and I had held a productive meeting yesterday in OIympia, following his first tour of the Hanford site the previous day. Even before learning of this new development, I told the Secretary I continue to have serious concerns regarding the pace of addressing the leaking tanks. We will be insisting on an acceleration of remediation of all the tanks, not just AY-102. USDOE has a legal obligation to clean up Hanford and remove or treat that waste, and we ensure that legal obligation is fulfilled."
 
They are between a rock and a hard place. Any attempt to mitigate the problem is met with whining from the left, pontificating from the right. Suggest a study of Russia's waste problems. Contaminated? yes, but; how much is too much? Is there a practical solution?
 
Hook, I salute you, Sir. That radiation is a ball rolling downhill, and it can't be stopped now.

Yup and there is nothing that can be done about it. Once ionizing radiation is released into the ecosystem it will be there emitting radiation for hundreds of years. Sure cancers will not start occurring for 20, or so years, but once they begin, they will continue, as there is no cure for damage being caused by ionizing radiation. The solution to the problem seems to have always been moving the contamination to another area before the ecosystem is contaminated. Once contaminated though it is now part of your culture. Future health care in the PNW will be a future challenge for sure. You folks ought to be happy that you have Obamacare to work for you. Good luck with a deadly situation.

And cookie, I caught that reference to the book of the Revelation.



Any chemist can tell you that you can't get the genie back in the bottle after it's too late, no matter how sorry you are. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says, basically, you're screwed. Well and truly.

Hanford has been getting worse for decades. Fukushima has been getting worse for years. There's no fixing it. I remember sitting at a sushi place in Asia as I watched the tsunami sweep across Japan on live TV, thinking, "This is so much worse than we realize right now. It'll be years before we know how bad it is."

At this moment cancer is set to overtake all other causes of death in China. How many years before the same is true in Japan, or Korea, or Indonesia? There's no going back now; the cake is baked. You can mitigate the disaster with homegrown remedies like turmeric and ascorbic acid, but it's little more than peeing into the firestorm when you're facing strontium 90 and cesium 137 in your food supply.

The most basic issue is that the radioactive contamination disperses into the environment, where it can't be collected, and then it bioaccumulates back into the food chain, where we consume it. There's no way out. It's too late.

Chin up, gents.
 
Were not the Lone Rangers regarding this issue.

From the web:

From 1946 through 1993, thirteen countries (fourteen, if the USSR and Russia are considered separately) used ocean disposal or ocean dumping as a method to dispose of nuclear/radioactive waste. The waste materials included both liquids and solids housed in various containers, as well as reactor vessels, with and without spent or damaged nuclear fuel. Since 1993, ocean disposal has been banned by international treaties. (London Convention (1972), Basel Convention, MARPOL 73/78)

However, according to the United Nations, some companies have been dumping radioactive waste and other hazardous materials into the coastal waters of Somalia, taking advantage of the fact that the country had no functioning government from the early 1990s onwards. According to one official at the United Nations, this caused health problems for locals in the coastal region and posed a significant danger to Somalia's fishing industry and local marine life.
 
<broken link removed>

Its been leaking for decades now. a problem that most likely is far to big to stop without removing the center section of Washington from the earth.
Get a good Gamma Scout (measures, alpha, beta, and gamma rays selectively) and you might be shocked at where radiation pops up.
 

Yep, 75,000 square miles of Washington and the Columbia river downstream to Astoria contaminated. Like I said, not reversible unless you dig up half the state and send it into orbit.
I dont even like being on the river from Bonneville to the Dalles. We do fish for salmon and steelhead between the Willamette and Bonneville days and night for the pike minnow about half the year though. We take a radiation detector along for kicks.
_______________________________
At my age I shoot forward a lot better than I run backward.
Rearward movement is only used for a forward Advantage and better sight alignment !
 

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