|
Introduction 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. (more) Mission Our mission is to educate the public on Hanford cleanup issues, and work to increase public participation in the Hanford decision making process. Contact us Web links Alliance for Nuclear Accountability |
Doc Hasting's reply to
a less than inadequate budget for hanford cleanup
The Bush administration has abandoned its promise to accelerate cleanup at Hanford and other large nuclear weapons sites, said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in a speech Monday in Arizona. He compared the administration's treatment of the budget to a soap opera: "Tonight, watch the tragic story of a jilted bride lured by promises of accelerated cleanup funding, only to be left at the altar, forgotten and neglected," according to a copy of his remarks. He made the speech at the 34th annual Waste Management Conference, organized by the Waste Management Symposia, a nonprofit group for nuclear waste management education. The Bush administration has followed a plan of cleaning up and closing smaller sites, saying dollars then would be shifted to large sites like Hanford. Under that plan, the Rocky Flats, Colo., and Fernald, Ohio, sites were closed, but the budget dollars were not rolled over to larger sites as promised, Hastings said. The administration's proposed budget for nationwide cleanup in fiscal 2009, which begins in October, is $5.5 billion. That's down from a budget of $6.1 billion in 2001 at the start of the Bush administration and a peak of $7.3 billion in 2005. "The accelerated cleanup initiative could have been a lasting environmental legacy of the Bush administration," Hastings said. "Instead, what started as a true success of real cleanup progress has dwindled away." For Hanford, the 2009 budget proposed by the administration would mean a cut of $58 million. But the impact on jobs is greater than that number would suggest, Hastings said. Work on ground water cleanup would receive more money, but other labor-intensive activities were hit hard, he said. Those projects include cleanup of Hanford along the Columbia River, which is being done by Washington Closure Hanford, and digging up temporarily buried waste contaminated with plutonium for permanent disposal off site, which is being done by Fluor Hanford. "The toll of this budget on river corridor cleanup is immense," Hastings said. The plan was to clean up areas along the river by as early as 2012 to eliminate risk to the river, shrink the contaminated portion of Hanford to 75 square miles at its center and reduce overhead costs for the site. "Instead the 2009 budget would cause hundreds of layoffs and hobble the ability to achieve on-time cleanup," Hastings said. The number of layoffs required at Hanford based on the administration's 2009 budget has been estimated at 500 by Hanford observers. Under federal law, Hanford contractors must give layoff notices 60 days in advance, which means they would have to start taking action by summer, Hastings said. However, in the past layoffs have been delayed if action in congressional appropriations bills would increase funding. "The risk, however, is that the final law doesn't ultimately provide the increase, which means even deeper layoffs," Hastings said. He predicted Congress would not be able to pass a Hanford budget on time for 2009 for a third year in a row, given spending limits imposed by Bush and the possibility that Congress will decide to take its chances with a new president. "There is an incredibly high certainty that spending bills will not become law before December or February," he said. |
A toxic time bomb in the
Northwest Buried in President Bush's proposed budget for next year is a story of broken promises. It's a story that puts our nation's honor -- and our environment, economy and families -- on the line. The president wants to increase spending on every major category of our government's nuclear program except one: cleaning up the toxic legacy that lurks at nuclear reservations and facilities around the nation. The administration wants more funding for nuclear weaponry, nuclear energy, nuclear science and management. But it would spend $800 million less on environmental cleanups at 20 federal nuclear sites in 14 states. Its request for cleanups at nuclear sites in several states is the lowest since 1997. Federal cleanups are not yet completed in Washington state, New York, South Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, California, Idaho, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Nevada or Utah. Our government is turning its back on long-standing commitments. Nothing better illustrates why America must clean up the enormous quantities of waste at these sites than Hanford, our country's most-contaminated federal nuclear reservation. Here, the United States produced weapons-grade plutonium, unlocking the code to the power that helped win the Cold War. The legacy of that era is a witches' brew of the world's most dangerous materials, housed in half-century-old storage tanks, that are contaminating nearby soils and aquifers. Will America keep its promises and clean up this toxic legacy? Will our nation and Congress allow the administration to turn its back on millions of Americans? Success won't come easily. Conscientious Americans must join the states that are living with unfinished nuclear cleanups to compel the Energy Department to get its program moving again. And time is not on our side. Just below ground at the Hanford site are 177 enormous steel tanks. They contain 53 million gallons of heavy metals, acids, solvents and highly radioactive elements, including plutonium, cesium, strontium and uranium. Sixty-seven tanks are confirmed leakers, and nearly all are well beyond their design lifespan. According to the Government Accountability Office, the federal government and its contractors also buried thousands of tons of radioactive and hazardous waste in unlined landfills and injected 450 billion gallons of liquid waste into ponds, ditches and drainfields at the site. That is about the amount of water that flows through the Potomac River in a month. As you read this, a huge plume of groundwater contaminated with radiation and heavy metals is moving from Hanford toward the Columbia River. If this toxic brew were buried 12 miles from the Potomac, the water source for hundreds of thousands of people in the D.C. area, the administration would undoubtedly make it a top budget priority. We are asking for nothing less for our communities. Adequate cleanup funding is imperative. And it doesn't require a budget increase; President Bush only has to get his nuclear priorities right. Each passing day increases the risk of leakage and catastrophic tank failure at Hanford. Each delay increases the risk to workers, the environment and more than a million people who live and work near the Columbia River downstream from Hanford. In the Oregon counties along the river below Hanford, 32,000 companies depend on clean, safe water to provide 500,000 jobs with a payroll of $18 billion -- 30 percent of the state's economic activity. In the Washington counties below Hanford, 25,000 companies rely on water to provide 280,000 jobs and a payroll of $9.5 billion -- 10 percent of the state's economic activity. Bush's proposed budget falls $600 million short of what the Energy Department says it needs for cleanup in 2009. The department is grossly out of compliance with major portions of the cleanup order signed 19 years ago on behalf of President George H.W. Bush that includes Washington state, the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. If this budget stands, only one tank at Hanford will be emptied in 2009. At that rate, it will take 140 years to empty the remaining 142 single-shell tanks and process the waste. We don't have 140 years. The river doesn't have 140 years. A dedicated pool of skilled individuals is ready to work, day in and day out, to clean up Hanford. They need our support to get the job done. A nation that cracked the code to the nuclear era can clean up that effort's toxic legacy. What's more, we are obligated to. Just as we must support the men and women in uniform who defend our freedom, we must also protect those communities that answered the call to duty. We are counting on the Bush administration and Congress to honor their commitments to the communities that helped win the Cold War. That is the America we can all be proud of. Chris Gregoire, a Democrat, is governor of Washington. Maria Cantwell, also a Democrat, represents the state in the Senate, where she serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. |
The
demise of the state of our country on all fronts is devastating;
the budget crisis at Hanford is no less so. The whole drive of
the current administration has been to let our country and our
citizens go and to spread our "capital" around the world
in very scattered ways. It's "hither and thither" seems
to flaunt the society we have attempted to build over the past
2 + centuries that our founding fathers
attempted to envision to some degree. I must say that over the
past 7 years, I have wondered if the current administration and
its "diviners" have set out from before the start to
unravel this country and leave us stripped of any shred of hope,
of drive, of concern for the "common good". Do they
really think that they and we are separate? If so, on what planet
do they expect to escape? And when will we all wake up and stand
up for protection of ourselves, not individually, but collectively?
