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The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere and a major Northwest environmental issue. It is a serious long-term threat to the Columbia River, which Oregon depends on for power generation, farm irrigation, fishing, transport and recreation. Our mission is to educate the public on Hanford cleanup issues, and work to increase public participation in the Hanford decision making process. For news updates, please see our Facebook page at: Contact us Hanford discussion email list
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Shipping Hanford's transuranic (TRU) tank waste to WIPP Hanford Watch president Paige Knight, March 7, 2013
Nearly two dozen nuclear facilities have unloaded waste at WIPP. To date, Hanford waste is not authorized. I am one of many former New Mexicans living in Washington state. It's my sincere hope that the DOE and organizations like yours will press for alternative proposals that will contain the waste at Hanford. RESPONSE FROM PAIGE KNIGHT: The fact is that Transurinic waste (TRU) has been coming to New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Project from many Defense Waste Sites around the country for years. The "pre-70's" TRU has never been authorized until now. I have actually visited the salt caves there. They are pretty impressive in terms of their geology, but I cannot be assured that they will protect the future. Nothing can accurately insure that. I am aware that citizen groups have fought the import of TRU from other sites. I understand that. After 2 decades of looking at all the issues of nuclear production and nuclear waste, I have begun to see things in a different light. The TRU waste that needs to be sent from Hanford to WIPP is, it seems the best alternative now because there are no other options than all of the nuclear sites keeping their waste on site, regardless of the lack of safety and treatment options. Hanford has taken cesium capsules from other sites over the years because of the kinds of storage we have available. Hanford Watch is not supportive of sending all waste to the back yard of someone else. We basically believe that if you make it here, you keep it and treat it and store it, however, some places are better able due to the "safety" of a place (geology and transportation). The government has long considered that Hanford, because it is a distant desert, especially to the Eastern U.S., is the greatest place to send all waste that other sites don't want so that they can say that their "cleanup" is complete. It just doesn't work this way. Right now, with the waste at Hanford and other places aging and on the verge of causing untold harm to populations through waterways some accommodations need to be made. This is an incredibly complex issue with no easy answers. I can honestly state that at this point there are no alternative proposals for waste disposal while the state of the sites continues to worsen. New Mexico's geology stands a much better chance of "protecting the future" than Hanford's alternative or lack thereof ensure. I know that this is not an answer that some of you want to hear or will necessarily respect. It's the best I can give right now. Sincerely, Paige Knight, HANFORD WATCH
This latest news of the increase in Hanford tank leaks is highly disturbing. In my 20 years of working on Hanford cleanup issues, this is not the first time that the truth has come out too late. DOE and its contractors have in the past fabricated or downplayed the data about leaks from the tanks to the environment. Their negligence in assessing the data is an ongoing problem through the last 2 + decades of the cleanup program through different leaders in the agency. I believe we really have to look at the lack of intentional and conscientious oversight of the contractors and labs that test the tanks. This issue demands that DOE and Congress appropriate money for building new tanks to contain the waste while DOE finds its way to get the Waste Treatment Plant back on track, if that is possible. We CANNOT fail to treat millions of gallons of radioactive waste sitting in failing underground tanks, no matter if they sit far from the Columbia River, the life blood of the Pacific Northwest or the five miles from the river as they truly do. The contractors and the DOE have created a cash cow that sucks the taxpayers dry. It is time for this mentality and practice to change and for the government and we, the people, to demand a moral and physical resolution to cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Safe storage and treatment of nuclear waste is tantamount to protecting our waterways, our health, our economy and future generations. This will require an end to the production of nuclear waste. All nuclear reactors no matter how "small" will produce deadly waste. Cleanup is the price we pay, and that we are owed by a nuclear weapons and nuclear power industry that has been uncontrolled. |
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FROM
AN INQUIRER: What is your organization's position on shipping waste
to WIPP? As you know, after years and years of bitter fighting,
the people of New Mexico were assured that only low level waste
would be shipped there. Attempts to change that via the permitting
process have been rebuffed.
Hanford
Watch president Paige Knight, Feb. 23, 2013