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<br /> CONFRONTING THE NUCLEAR LEGACY-PART II / I
<br /> 4
<br /> Hanford's Nuclear Wasteland
<br /> t_
<br /> by Glenn Zorpette, staff writer
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<br /> O vet [he next 7S years, the U.S. far-flung interest, and not just because Environmental Protettion Agency-to c
<br /> government will undertake of the sums involved. "This is absolute- begin working with one another. Un- ~ c
<br /> what has been called the ly brand-new-not only to industrial fommatelg adherence m the agreement F c
<br /> largest civil works projett in world his- society but to humankind," says Roy E. has hindered planning and priority set- )
<br /> tory in an expansive desert in southeast Gephart, a program manager in the en- ting, several studies have found. F
<br /> Washington State. When the project is vironmental and energy sciences divi- "We've been on this cleanup effort ~
<br /> over, at a cost of well over $SO billion, Sion of Battelle Pacific Northwest Na- for six years, and we're still not out of
<br /> there will be no sprawling rocket-launch tional Laboratory in Richland, Wash. the starting block," states a scientist a
<br /> center or string of advanced electricity- "There will be difficult political, social who has worked at Hanford for two
<br /> generating plants or other inspiring and technical trade-offs as we approach decades. "No program-For rank clean- ~
<br /> monuments to progress. What there cleaning up this site." up, groundwater remediation or any-
<br /> will be, mostly, is radioactive detrirus, In an effott to determine how well thing else-has lasted more
<br /> millions of tons of i[, ranging fiomcon- the cleanup is proceeding, SetENnete than about two years. We're ~
<br /> taminated soil to entire ?ucleaz reactors. AMatttcAN examined several dozen re- not sustaining along-tetrlt vi-
<br /> k will all be on a large plateau, buried cent reports and other documents, some Sion, and investment in chat
<br /> in vast landfills or stashed away in a not yet officially released, and condutt- vision, long enough co make - _
<br /> collection of nondescript buildings. And ed scores of interviews with cleanup any progress."
<br /> there it will stag probably for thou- workers, administrators and scieunsts
<br /> sands of years to come. at Hanford as well as with key DOE Cold Waz Leftovers r :
<br /> Such is the future of the Department officials and others in Washington, D.C. r;r^'
<br /> of Energy's Hanford site, the original The picture that emerges from this re- uge as the Hanford
<br /> U.S. plutonium-production complex search is not encouraging. In addition Hprojett is, it is just one
<br /> and the source of the plutonium used in to the contaminared soil and water, piece-about afifth-of a ;
<br /> the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, dozens of potential disasters vie for ac- DOE program to close down -
<br /> Japan, during World War II. From chose tenrion, including: a large pact of its vast nucle-
<br /> early days of military and technological 177 huge underground ranks of ar-weapons enterprise over
<br /> glory, the 1,450-square-kilometer Han- high-level nuclear waste, some of which the next century, give or take
<br /> ford sire has slowly devolved into a have leaked or are building up heat or a few decades. Estimates of
<br /> nightmarish agglomeration of decay- Flammable gases; cleanup costs range from '
<br /> ing, contaminated facilities chat each • At least a dozen tons of dangerous $230 billion to more than .
<br /> consume tens of millions of dollars a plutonium, some of it in the soil or oth- half a trillion dollars-well
<br /> year just to be kept stable or safe. erwise unsecured; in excess of the $375 billion
<br /> In 1989 th; DOE began deactivating • Five gigantic and profoundly con- it cost, in current dollars, to
<br /> and cleaning up Hanford. At last count, taminated buildings where plutonium research and build the tens
<br /> there were about 14,300 contractor was extracted from irradiated nuclear of thousands of weapons that
<br /> workers and 550 DOE employees at the fuel; were assembled in the U.S.
<br /> complex, and an estimated 1,400 differ- • 2,100 tons of irradiated fuel, in and to detonare the 1,000 or
<br /> ent places where environmental work basins chat in an earthquake could be- so chat were tested. Govem-
<br /> had begun or was needed. At several come lethal, radioactive dustbins. ment officals expett to spend •
<br /> hundred of these sites, liquid or solid Not surprisinglg questions have been fully 70 percent of the money „'~i
<br /> nuclear wastes had been intentionally raised about virtually every aspect of on just five DOE sites, includ- g _ :
<br /> dumped: since 1944 the DOE and its pre- the Hanford projett. They concern ing Hanford. m ~ -+i
<br /> decessors are believed to have pumped whether the work is being done proper- The imprecision of the time ~ ;xe `
<br /> l.3 billion cubic meters of liquid waste ly and efficiently, how cleanup con- and cost estimates results in W
<br />
<br /> and contaminated effluents into Han- tracts are being written and [he possi- part from the lack of agree-
<br />
<br /> ford's soil. biliry that a mishap could cause aradio- ment on how "clean" the for-
<br /> Over the past seven years, the DOE logical disasrer. The most significant met weapons sites will need i <
<br />
<br /> has spent S7.S billion cleaning up Han- accomplishment of the past seven years to be on that faroff and prob- s
<br />
<br /> ford. It expects to spend at least Sl bil- may be an arrangement that has en- ably chimerical day when
<br />
<br /> lion at Hanford every year for the next abled parties with conflicting interests- they ate formally declared re-
<br />
<br /> four decades. The cleanup has amacted principally the state, the DOE and the habilitated. "There can't be
<br />
<br /> 88 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN May 1996 ----~~-qq iar ord's Nuclear Wasteland
<br /> Comm. l40: ~i1fi.
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