Three underground tanks at the Washington-based nuclearreservation were last week found to be leaking at aninitially-estimated rate of 300 gallons of waste per year. ButDepartment of Energy investigators this week discovered threeadditional tanks were leaking, bringing the total estimated annualwaste to 1,000 gallons per year.
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which was established in 1943as part of the Manhattan Project, is mostly decommissioned butstill holds two-thirds of the nation’s radioactive waste in its 177tanks. The millions of gallons of radioactive material, which stillremain from Cold War-era plutonium production, are highly dangerousand are quickly dripping into American soil.
Leaks were discovered years ago, but the Department of Energysaid the problem had been solved when it was initially discoveredin 2005.
“These tanks, we were told by the federal government, werestabilized years ago. We know now that is not the case,”Washington state Governor Jay Inslee told reporters on Wednesday.“The federal government has a legally binding obligation to bothremove this material and to make sure we curb thisleakage.”
But Inslee also said that the government currently has noavailable technology to stop the leaks and is unable to stop theradioactive material from flowing into the earth. Officials arecurrently discussing possible methods of extracting the waste fromthe soil, but coming up with a solution could take weeks or evenmonths, Inslee said.
The government estimates that already 1 million gallons ofradioactive liquid have leaked from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation– yet still, Inslee claims the material poses no immediate threatto public safety.
Meanwhile many question government's spending on the clean upefforts.
“At the time of the sequester, taxpayers spend $2 billion peryear just maintaining the cleanup operation,” Michio Kaku, aphysics professor at the City University of New York, told CBSNews. “Then it was revealed that hundreds of gallons ofhigh-level toxic waste have been leaking over the last severalyears right into the ground. Eventually into the groundwater andmaybe the Columbia River.”
The radioactive waste contains the most dangerous chemicalsknown to man, including plutonium, enriched uranium, nitric acidand solvents.
“To get this into perspective, to get your head around this,imagine 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools containing the most toxicsubstance known to science of which two Olympic-size swimming poolshave leaked right into the ground and eventually into the watertable and, perhaps, even into people's drinking water,” Kakuadded.
Governor Inslee believes that the $85 billion in automaticgovernment spending cuts, set to go into effect on March 1, wouldmake it more difficult for the government to clean up the waste.The Department of Energy estimates that it would take $114.8billion to clean up the waste “before the end of thiscentury,” Inslee said.
With an inadequate budget for the cleanup effort and notechnology to stop the leaks, the area around the Hanford NuclearReservation could soon be in grave danger – especially if the wastemakes its way into Americans’ drinking water.
