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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Radioactive Goo Leaking At Atomic City's Hanford Nuclear Site
2013-02-25
Richland, WA aka The Atomic City -- Six and possibly 140 or so underground tanks holding bubbling WWII radioactive goo and toxic waste are leaking for 50-60 years at America's most contaminated nuclear site in Washington, federal and state officials say, posing an eventual risk to people groundwater and rivers, but creating a most interesting species of 3 eyed fish in the Columbia River...and thousands of high paying clean-up contract jobs. Some folks in the Tri-Cities have never worked anywhere else!

The leaking materials at Hanford Nuclear Reservation are no immediate threat to public safety or the environment because it would take perhaps years for the chemicals to reach groundwater, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Democrat, said Friday. So far, nearby monitoring wells haven't detected higher radioactivity levels. But the leaks have renewed discussion over delays for emptying the tanks, which were installed decades ago and are long past their intended 20-year life span.

"None of these tanks would be acceptable for use today. They are all beyond their design life. None of them should be in service," said Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a Hanford watchdog group. "And yet, they're holding two-thirds of the nation's high-level nuclear waste."
Posted by:Besoeker

#13  Alyeska Pablo, the problem here is managers. Managers manage the problem, and they manage to see that it never does manage to go away. 'Cause who knows if they'd manage to find another job.

Have you noticed what happened to the gross cancer rate since the American Cancer Society got ahold of it?
Nothing.
Posted by: ed in texas   2013-02-25 20:45  

#12  Should be careful - the stuff might explode and send the moon Washington State shooting our across the universe.

I know some of you wouldn't miss is but it'll be hard on us few Washington State conservatives....
Posted by: CrazyFool   2013-02-25 16:56  

#11  Well the answer a few years back was to solidify the stuff into giant popcicles and store in Yucca Mountain, but as bigjim-CA indicated, the Yucca Mountain plan hit the NIMBY firewall. Not sure wat 'Plan B' is or was.
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-02-25 15:40  

#10  "None of them should be in service," said Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a Hanford watchdog group. "And yet, they're holding two-thirds of the nation's high-level nuclear waste."

There's something deeply incompetent happening there. It sounds as if they don't have any answers that don't cost at least a million dollars.
Posted by: Raider   2013-02-25 15:35  

#9  I hav never commented on rant?? Those tanks have been leaking for many years

Welcome to the conversation, willford! That was my take on the article, too. Still, it's good to remind the community that the longer they avoid taxing themselves to pay for replacement tanks, the greater the health risk to themselves and the greater the accrued cost of cleaning up the mess.
Posted by: trailing wife   2013-02-25 13:08  

#8  that's poop from Godzilla.
Posted by: Raider   2013-02-25 12:19  

#7  I hav never commented on rant?? Those tanks have been leaking for many years
Posted by: willford   2013-02-25 12:12  

#6  Gojira had cellulite?
Posted by: Spot   2013-02-25 08:04  

#5  GODZIRRA!!!
Posted by: tu3031   2013-02-25 01:50  

#4  Transformer Dynobot GRIMLOCK says "ME, GRIMLOCK, LIKE TO EAT GREEN GOO"!
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2013-02-25 01:39  

#3  It is a nice batholith and a good place for storage, but you can thank Harry Reid and his enviro wack constituents.

Politicians are not problem solvers, they are problem sustainers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2013-02-25 01:39  

#2  Yucca Mountain would be a nice place to put the timeless liquid death.
But alas.....
Posted by: bigjim-CA   2013-02-25 01:33  

#1  The Japs and Graphite ball crowd are on it!
Posted by: Marilyn Lover of the Hatfields1778   2013-02-25 00:06  

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