Photo by Sabine Hilding 1999
Inside FFTF

Letter to The Oregonian on FFTF

Editor:

I was appalled by your recent editorial (Aug. 29, "Using atoms to cure cancer") in favor of restarting Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility nuclear reactor.

I am a cancer survivor and I care about cancer treatment, but we do not need FFTF to make medical isotopes. These isotopes can be produced in an accelerator, a machine that fires subatomic particles down a tunnel and smashes them into a target. Accelerators create very small amounts of short-lived nuclear waste. FFTF would produce 16 tons of spent fuel, which is high-level radioactive waste, dangerous to human and other life for hundreds of thousands of years. We have nowhere to put it, no safe way to dispose of it, no sure way to contain it for the time in which it will be dangerous. Producing high- level, long-lived nuclear waste is a bargain with the devil, a burden we have no right to place on our descendents.

Restarting FFTF is opposed by Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber, Sen. Wyden, Reps. Wu, Blumenauer and Defazio, and the Portland City Council.

The Dept. of Energy is taking public comments on FFTF until Sept. 18. Comments may be emailed to Nuclear.Infrastructure-PEIS@hq.doe.gov. A final decision on restart is expected in December.

Lynn Porter
Hanford Watch
www.hanfordwatch.org