COM 0212.338 1996-1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I' The U.S. is spending billions to clean up its nuclear weapons complexes. At one o f the most contaminated sites, no one knows how much the project will cost, how long it will take or how much good it will do ! i i cleanup in the traditional sense, like you lossal mess was created requires a bit of Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. .V~ dean up a kitchen floor or a hazardous history. Starting wnh the Manhanan The uranium was irradiared and q? chemical site in the civil sectoy" notes Project, the U.S. assembled an enor- chemically treated to create plutonium ' sd James D. Werner, director of strategic mous industry for manufacturing nu- at sites near Hanford, Wash., and it planning and anal7sis in the DoE's clear weapons. A great deal of the en- Aiken, S. C.; the plutonium metal was Office of Environmental Management. terprise was devoted to making plutoni- machined into bomb components ar ~ ' " "The stuff we're dealing with can't go um, a basic element of nuclear weapons Rockv Flats, Colo. Those parts came away until it decays. You can container- and the cold war's coin of the realm. together wich hundreds of others into ~ ize it, solidify it, immobilize it and move The metal is derived from uranium, finished weapons at a plant called Pan- I it, but you can't make it go away." which was processed or fashioned into tex in the Texas Panhandle. ~ Understanding how and why this co- nuclear fuel ac complexes in the states of At these sites, the cold war ethos em- i', j Ili 'M1df... H .i~ t 1 *K,i. .ii~~ a. "S > _ s-~; +a~ r <t.~M i y ~ F~ ' ~a. 1- ~9 I -..,r a ~ - .er„~ 7' t' ' Sv i y .:~i.z`~~`,n. III HIGH-LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE TANK sits about three me- toting and sampling of the wasre. These entry tubes are normally lets underground. Ports and risers admit instruments for moni- sealed by the plate visible in the photograph. Han ford's Nuclear Wasteland SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MaV 1996 g9