Friends and Colleagues:
By my count, this is the 12th public meeting that I have attended in the past several years. These are valuable opportunities for the public to learn more about and comment on the project that represents 2/3 of the nation’s volume of nuclear waste, and as such is a persistent and imposing threat on the health and welfare of our region.
Hanford isn’t necessarily a household word anymore in Oregon. Many have forgotten about it altogether. In fact, I didn’t see a single reference to it last Friday, December 7th, the 66th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Few remember that it was that very event that eventually led to the effort to develop nuclear materials at Hanford.
Now, we are left with the legacy of that effort. The $2 billion annual cleanup costs dwarf any other public works project in the western hemisphere. It’s an immensely complicated effort, and requires constant vigilance by the public.
I’d like to focus on two areas: Progress and problems.
First, let’s give the workers at Hanford some credit. They’ve moved forward with clear progress on a number of areas that we’ve demanded over the past few years. For instance, they been working on:
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Removing the dangerous radioactive liquid wastes from all of the old, leaking and decaying single shell underground waste tanks. On top of that, 7 of the 144 single shell tanks have had most of their solid wastes removed as well. That’s excellent news, although more needs to be done.
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Removing 2,600 metric tons of old, decaying nuclear fuel from the storage ponds that were only steps away from the Columbia River. And recently, the remaining radioactive sludge has been removed and treated from one of the two storage basins. This eliminates a huge potential for contamination that could have hit the river in the event of an earthquake.
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Digging up and disposing of more than 4 million tons of contaminated materials and soils that had been buried underground next to the river.
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Solving the design problems at the vitrification plant, which have allowed the U.S. Government to authorize a restart of construction of this key plant to turn 53 million gallons of radioactive waste into a safer glass form. |
There have been plenty of problems as well. For instance:
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This past summer, a transfer line in the tank farms went unsupervised for several hours after a leak developed, spilling almost one-hundred gallons of radioactive waste in the dessert. Worse, this mistake has shut down all retrieval of tank farm waste for almost six months. DOE needs to be able to react more quickly to mistakes, assess the problem and restart cleanup efforts expeditiously.
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The failure of the DOE’s Office of River Protection to ask Congress for enough money to maintain the ancient, decaying infrastructure at these underground tanks threatens to lead to a repeat of this incident. I am hopeful that with new management at ORP, they will forward a stronger request to fully fund tank farm operations and maintenance for 2009. Because of the delays in the construction of the vitrification plant, this issue becomes imperative. These old valves, pipes and tanks are up to 60 years old, and must be maintained.
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Tests on the “bulk vitrification” project are behind schedule and technical issues and questions continue to dog the project. This puts into jeopardy our ability to treat the 2/3 of the tank waste that is destined for “supplemental” treatment.
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Proposals to bring MORE waste into Hanford before the vitrification plant is up and running and our current waste streams are identified for treatment are justifiably controversial.
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The decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to irresponsibly cut funding for tank waste cleanup by $100 million threatens to drag out cleanup of nuclear waste by years. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate wants to fully fund the project. |
Make no mistake about it. Fully cleaning up Hanford is a moral imperative. We have a responsibility to our children, to our environment and to our nation to proceed expeditiously.
One of our major concerns has been the lack of focus on efforts to bring new technology to bear on groundwater cleanup. More than 1 million gallons of tank waste leaked into the groundwater over the years, and all of it is headed slowly towards the River. We’ve commented in past years that we needed to focus much more on groundwater cleanup, and I am pleased that finally the U.S. DOE has begun to listen to our pleas and has increased funding and attention for this critical issue. Several new technologies have been demonstrated this year, including the use of molasses in the 300 Area which has shown promise against the uranium plume.
Tonight’s meeting is a start. I ask each of you in the audience to take what you’ve heard hear tonight and do three things:
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Share it with ten of your friends. Tell them why they should be concerned and involved in cleaning up Hanford.
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Write to your elected officials and to your newspapers. Make your voices heard.
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Come back. Get on the mailing list and stay involved in these meetings. |
Again, on behalf of the Hanford Information Network, we urge the public officials here to redouble their efforts. There is not a single environmental issue that is more serious or more deserving of attention than Hanford. We thank you for your work, urge you to improve your systems and processes, and move ahead with cleaning up the mess left from 5 decades of nuclear contamination.
