By Lynn Porter

FFTF is the Monica Lewinsky of Hanford, diverting public attention from the main cleanup issues at Hanford, the leaking tank waste and the spent fuel in the K Basins, which threaten the Columbia River.

Although Oregon has quite clearly said NO to restarting FFTF in the past, the Dept. of Energy is back to shove it in our face one more time. The people in the Tri-Cities around Hanford tell us that this is about medical isotopes, but it is really about money and jobs for the Tri-Cities and votes for Washington politicians. Oregon, with over one million people downstream from Hanford, has the most to lose by creating more waste there, and nothing to gain. It is deeply offensive to Oregonians to even propose restarting FFTF.

Over 35 years of operation at one-quarter power, FFTF would generate 15 tons of spent fuel, dangerous to human and other life for over 10,000 years, our only concrete form of eternal damnation. We have no safe way to dispose of this waste. We may never have a way. It is therefore extremely irresponsible to create any more of it.

FFTF pushers say that 15 tons is a very small amount compared to the 2100 tons already in the K Basins. This is illogical and irrelevant. Because we already have huge amounts of spent fuel at Hanford does not mean that more is okay. Whatever fraction it may be of what already exists, it is still 15 tons. Plus processing plutonium 238 for space probe batteries would produce more high-level liquid waste to go into the leaking tanks.

There is no agreement in the medical field on the future need for medical isotopes. The National Institute of Medicine has said that market demand for medical isotopes is "speculative at best." If more medical isotopes are needed, there are other ways to make them. Dave Johnson, a retired nuclear physicist who spent many years at Hanford, told me that a specially designed neutron accelerator could produce a greater variety of medical isotopes than FFTF, at considerably less cost. The design already exists. He said it could be built for $200 million or less.

According to Dirk Dunning of the Oregon Office of Energy, the amount of waste generated by such an accelerator "would be very small compared to a reactor. The nature of the waste would also be different. If it was judiciously designed, the vast majority of what little waste it created could be short lived nuclides."

As for safety issues, how does the vaporization of Portland strike you? FFTF uses MOX fuel, mixed oxide, a mixture of uranium and plutonium. Hanford has six years of MOX fuel on hand, after which they could import another 14 years of MOX from Germany. Transportation of MOX fuel is very controversial because of the danger of hijacking by terrorists. MOX fuel is not dangerous to handle, and the plutonium can be easily separated from the uranium. It only takes a few pounds of plutonium to make a bomb. Remember the shock that went through this country when the federal building in Oklahoma City was truck-bombed? A nuclear weapon is the ultimate truck bomb.

I believe the FFTF issue will be decided by political or legal force. Oregon Representative David Wu has introduced a bill in Congress to cut off funding for FFTF restart in the 2001 budget. There are no cosponsors and as far as I know neither of our senators has introduced similar legislation. We need more than statements from the Oregon congressional delegation. We need them to get on board and support Wu’s bill.