Federal and state officials said in February six giant underground tanks holding an explosive and toxic brew of highly radioactive liquid wastes are leaking at the 570 square mile Hanford Reservation, on the Columbia River in South Central Washington State. Hanford is perhaps the dirtiest reactor site in the world with 1,000 inactive dumps, 100 to 200 square miles of contaminated ground water, and 50,000 drums of plutonium wastes in temporary storage.
For 40 years, Hanford’s eight production reactors made plutonium for H-bombs, and in the process its contractors dumped plutonium, cesium, technetium, tritium, strontium and other isotopes to the air, soil, ground water and, astonishingly, even directly into the Columbia River — the drinking water source for downstream cities.
Hanford has 54 million gallons of the high-level liquids and sludge in 177 aged and decrepit tanks. In the 1980s, the Dept. of Energy (DOE) disclosed that up to 69 of the million-gallon tanks were leaking. February’s disclosure makes 75.
A cikin 1998, DOE ta ce tana tsammanin duk tankunan za su zube a ƙarshe. Shekaru ashirin da suka gabata Newsweek ya bayyana cewa duk "tankuna 177 da ba a yi wa lakabi ba suna zubar da glop na rediyo." An cire galan miliyan da yawa don sarrafawa.
Mai magana da yawun DOE Lindsey Geisler ya ce a karshen watan da ya gabata babu wani hadarin lafiya kai tsaye daga sabbin leken asirin da aka gano. Ana zargin wannan tabbacin tun lokacin da DOE ta ce shekaru da dama da suka gabata cewa sharar tankokin za ta dauki shekaru 10,000 kafin ta kai ga ruwan kasa. Ya isa can cikin ƙasa da 40.
Irin wannan juyi na PR amma na zamani ya zo a ranar 22 ga Fabrairu, lokacin da Gwamnan Washington Jay Inslee ya ce jihar za ta aiwatar da manufar "marasa juriya" kan kwararar sharar rediyo a cikin ƙasa. Idan aka waiwayi tarihin Hanford, manufar “kwanciyar hankali” ta fi yiwuwa.
Tip of a leaching radioactive iceberg
This season’s leaks, which reportedly amount to 300 gallons per year, seem barely newsworthy in view of the colossal dumping that’s been done at Hanford.
In the heyday of plutonium production, the Seattle Times has reported, “The DOE estimates that as many as 750,000 curies of radioactive iodine, xenon, cesium, strontium, plutonium and uranium may have been put zuwa kogin Columbia kowace shekara a cikin 1950s."
Mako guda kafin jaridar ta ba da rahoton cewa, "Yawancin abubuwan da aka saki sun hada da zubar da ruwan sanyi a cikin kogin Columbia." Tim Connor na Hanford Watch da ke Spokane ya gaya wa jaridar cewa a kullum ana fitar da curies 430 da aka ambata a cikin rahoton 1946, “daidai da hatsarin Tsibirin Mile Uku kowace sa’a.”
Jami'an DOE sun yarda a cikin 1991 cewa manajoji sun zubar 440 biliyan galan na radioactive taya kai tsaye cikin ƙasa — using ditches, cribs, trenches and injection wells — and that hazardous waste had “fouled the Columbia River.” A 1965 report from Hanford among 19,000 pages of documents declassified in 1986 says “a total of 6 million curies” of radioactive material were dumped directly into the Columbia. In 2000, the DOE estimated that the tanks held 190 million curies of radioactivity.
Barin biliyoyin galan na guba na nukiliya da aka zuba kai tsaye a cikinsa, da New York Times ya ruwaito a cikin Oktoba 1997 cewa, "Idan yoyo daga tankuna sun isa kogin Columbia ta ruwa na ƙasa, kayan aikin rediyo za a haɗa su cikin sarkar abinci kuma suna iya fallasa mutane zuwa radiation. na ƙarni. "
Kuma ko da duk waɗannan miliyoyin curies da aka jefa a cikin ƙasa, wani manajan ruwa na ƙasa a Hanford ya ce a cikin 2000 cewa “mafi muni” sharar gida, gami da technetium-99 da cobalt-60, “wataƙila har yanzu shekaru 20 baya” daga Columbia. .
Shekaru 1987 tun lokacin da aka rufe injina (sun daina yin plutonium a XNUMX) zubar da sharar tankin plutonium ba ita ce kawai hanyar da ake ba da cutar kansar Yakin Cold War daga Hanford ba.
Wildfires burned 300 acres of the reservation in summer 2000, when Energy Secretary Bill Richardson rushed to say July 1, “There does not appear to be any contamination whatsoever.” Wrong again Mr. DOE. By August 3, plutonium was found to have been lofted to 10 far-flung areas, including five Eastern Washington city neighborhoods.
Ko da a lokacin, Jerry Leitch, wani jami'in EPA a lokacin, ya shaida wa Seattle Post that the amount of plutonium was below what’s considered a threat to health. Really? A single atomic particle of plutonium if inhaled can cause lung cancer.
The estimated cost of cleanup — the most expensive anti-pollution effort in history — has steadily increased. In 1989, DOE guessed it would take $57 billion and 50 years. By 1997 its estimate was over $200 billion.
Explosive risks, exploding tanks
The DOE has long worried that its waste tanks, at Hanford and at Savannah River, S.C., could explode due to the buildup of hydrogen gas or organic vapors. Indeed, a 1965 explosion at Hanford ruptured one tank that subsequently leaked 800,000 gallons of cooling water into the soil. Again on May 14, 1997, a tank holding plutonium processing chemicals blew up, sending its heavy steel lid and a plume of toxic gas through the roof.
Arjun Makhijani has said that an analysis by the DOE in 1978 put that chance of hydrogen explosions Savannah River’s tanks at 1-in-10,000. Chances of an explosion of organic vapors were ten times higher, or 1-in-1,000. Considering the number of tanks, the chance of one of them having an explosion was one-in-50 each year.
Health effects seen early on
In 1986, researcher Michael Blain at Boise State Univ. showed that women in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho had elevated rates of thyroid and breast cancer and said there was a high probability that “the excess cancers are attributable to the release of radioactive iodine.” Cancers, miscarriages and other health problems suffered by people in the area have been blamed on the deliberate spewing of 5,500 curies of iodine-131 to the atmosphere in a Dec. 3, 1949 experiment called “green run,” and on the offhand dispersal of 340,000 curies in 1945 alone.
In 1974, Dr. Samuel Milham in Washington’s state health department published his finding that men who had worked at Hanford had a 25 percent higher proportion of cancer deaths than for similarly aged men in other work. And in 1977, the journal Lafiya Physics da aka buga Alice Stewart, Thomas Mancuso da George Kneal binciken na kashi 6 ko 7 ya karu da cutar kansa a cikin ma'aikatan Hanford. Game da wannan karuwa Dr. Stewart ya ce, "Ba wani tasiri mai yawa ba ne amma abin da ya firgita shi ne cewa akwai wani tasiri ko kadan tun lokacin da ciwon daji ke faruwa a matakan hasken radiation da ke ƙasa da iyakokin hukuma na rads biyar a kowace shekara. Yana nufin cewa ƙa'idodin aminci na nukiliya na yanzu na iya yin girma har sau 20. "
A cikin 1990, wani bincike na DOE na fallasa hasken iska daga Hanford ya gano cewa jarirai da yara sun kamu da cutar sosai saboda shan gurɓataccen madara. Aikin Sake Gina Muhalli na Hanford ya gano cewa mutane 13,500 na iya samun allurai sama da radis 33 na aidin-131 kuma jarirai da yaran da ke kusa da Hanford sun iya cinye tsakanin rads 650 zuwa 3,000. Ko da radi guda ɗaya na iya haifar da ciwon daji na thyroid da sauran cututtuka.
Kada a sanya ma'ana mai kyau a kai: Sabbin ledojin guda shida na Hanford sune ƙarshen dusar ƙanƙara ta radiation wanda ke yaduwa zuwa Kogin Columbia kuma ya wuce cutar kansa da cututtukan da ba za su taɓa ƙarewa ba.
John LaForge yana aiki ne ga Nukewatch, ƙungiyar kare muhalli da ƙungiyar adalci a Wisconsin, kuma yana gyara wasiƙar sa kwata. (nukewatchinfo.org)