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<br /> finalized at press time because of the ' surfac tter aze contaminated. Along waste into tl' ~ ail. Fifty-four tanks aze I ~
<br /> federal budget impasse) is likely to be I with mctr counterparts in the former ~ continuously - _~nitored, about half be-
<br /> $5.7 billion. In effect, the DOE is being , Soviet Union, these are the grievously 'cause they occasionally build up flam-
<br /> painfully transformed into a huge envi- disturbed battlefields of the cold wac ~ mable gases inside-{tearing the possi-
<br /> ronmentalagency that has so far shown ' I biliry, though slight, of a radiation- ~
<br /> Gale apdmde for its core mission. Nightmare in 177 Tanks releasing chemical explosion. The DOE I
<br /> Only lately, as part of Energy Secre- i spends $80 million a year just to main-
<br /> tary Hazel R. O'Leazy's initiative to "~'he DOE has been working longest ,Main the tanks and keep them safe.
<br /> make the DOE more open about is past 1 to stabilize and remediate Hanford, Almost all the tank waste was genet- ~
<br /> and present, has the department begun making the site a proving grounds of ated as a by-product of the isolarion of
<br /> revealing the extent of its ttansgressions. sorts for the many other complexes plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Sin-
<br /> The DOE and its contractors generated where work is less advanced-includ- gle steel shells covered by reinforced
<br /> hundreds of thousands of cubic meters trig those in the former Soviet Union. concrete make up 149 of the tanks, ro-
<br /> of highly radioattive and hazardous This yeaz $1.353 billion of the Enviton- eluding the 67 that have or may have
<br /> waste and billions of cubic meters of mental Management budget, the largest leaked; the rest have more leak-resis-
<br /> less radioactive effluents. The DOE now share, will go to Hanford; by the end of rant double shells. Although they were
<br /> admits that enormous amounts of the [his fiscal year, almost $9 billion will ' ~incended to hold some radioactive prod-
<br /> liquids and solids were simply pumped have been spent at Hanford on work I acts with half-lives of thousands of
<br /> or dumped into [he ground. Most of designated as environmental. The lack ~ years, the tanks were designed to last
<br /> the wastes contain boxh radioattive and of apparent progress, however, has only 25 years-and were built without
<br /> chemical contaminants. promp[ed many observers to wonder any means for draining the waste.
<br /> At some places where releases were where exattly the money has gone. The first of the single-shell tanks were
<br /> intentional, scientists tried to estimate The simplest reason why so little finished in 1944. By 1959, weapons i
<br /> how much contaminant the soil above progress is apparent is that' unfortu- officials at the DOE's predecessor agen-
<br /> the groundwater could adsorb; opera- natelg the remediation of contaminated cY knew that some of them had leaked.
<br /> tors were then supposed to Emit tits- soil and water is one of the least urgent "Yet they kept building them until ~
<br /> chazges to 10 percent of that amount. items on Hanford's agenda. Of [he 1964 and kept introducing waste into
<br /> Judging from the groundwater prob- ,many other, more pressing issues, the them until 1980," notes Andrew P. Ca-
<br /> letns at most large DOE complexes, the ~ ~ 177 high-level waste tanks are the puto, an attorney with the Nantral Re-
<br /> technique was rarely or inadequately I biggest, most complex and most costly sources Defense Council, a watchdog
<br /> applied. In recen[ years, a series of liq- by far. One contractor has estimated group. "It's hard to explain this history ~
<br /> aid-effluent treatment plants have be- that this job alone could cos[ $50 bd- in a rational way." I
<br /> gun operating to clean up the dischazges lion. Nevertheless, until quite recently, The tanks contain waste from three
<br /> before they go into the ground. the tank farm was tended by some of different reprocessing technologies. In- I a
<br /> There were accidental releases of Hanford's worst workers. It was "a termittently, other chemical processes
<br /> waste, too. Almost all are aaributable Siberia for a lot of derelicts on the site," were used to mine the tanks of usefiil or
<br /> to carelessness: high-level radioactive says Roger F. Bacon, West-
<br /> wastes sometimes leaked Erom aging inghouse Hanford Compa- I
<br /> storage tanks into the soil, as did con- ny vice president in charge The DoE is being transformed ~
<br /> terminated water from basins contain- of the tank program. trltO a huge envtrOnmental '
<br /> trig spent nuclear fuel or other materi- To instill discipline in the
<br /> ak. Millions of curies of potenrially program, Westinghouse Han- agency that has ShOtflYl little
<br /> harmful radioactive materials were also ford recently brought in Ba- a tirade Or its core mission.
<br /> released into the air and nearby river con, a tall, broad-shouldered p f
<br /> water at Hanford and other sites, some- former navy admiral and
<br /> times intentionally. submarine commander who
<br /> Some of the damage is permanent, looks the part. Bacon, who wrote the troublesome isotopes. When some of
<br /> cleanup technologies either do not exist forward to one of Tom Clarity's books, the tanks started leaking, waste was
<br /> or could never make a dent in the level now has in the tank-waste project a shiked around from rank to tank-end,
<br /> of contamination. For example, at Han- mission faz more daunting than any- inevitably, mixed together-to avoid
<br /> ford, a plume of groundwater contain- thing ever dreamed up for a techno- the leaking vessels.
<br /> i trig tritium, nitrates and other contatni- thriller. The tanks, many the size of the The bottom line is that DOE officials
<br /> I, Hants occupies at least 250 square kilo- I U.S. Capitol dome, store 210,000 cubic do not know exattly what is in the
<br /> meters and is leaching into the Columbia ~ meters of intensely radioactive, high- tanks. That information is necessary Eor
<br /> Rivet' which runs for 82 kilometer level nucleaz waste. Almost half of Han- several reasons. A legal agreement with
<br /> through Hanford. It is practically im- ford's known accumulation of roughly the state of Washington obligates the
<br /> possible to sepazate tritium, a radioac- 450 million curies of radioattivity sit in federal government to mix the waste
<br /> rive isotope of hydrogen, Erom water. the tanks-a hellish mixture of liquids, with glass (a technique called viaifi-
<br /> The contaminated plume is only one of gases, peanut-butter-like sludges and canon) for eventual disposal in a high-
<br /> dozens below the site. ,rocklike "salt cake." level nuclear-waste repository. But the
<br /> I The DOE estimates that throughout I Sixty-seven of the 177 tanks aze waste catmot be safely or efficiently vtt-
<br /> I all the weapons complexes, billions of ~ known or suspected of having leaked rifled until the DOE and its contractors
<br /> i cubic meters of soil, groundwater and ~ an estimated 3,700 cubic meter of know its composition. The waste's in- ;
<br /> Han~ord's Nuclear Wasteland SetexrtFte M+ttuuN May 1996 91
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