Risk of restarting Hanford reactor not worth it

Photo by Sabine Hilding 1999
Hanford Watch members William Kinsella and Paige Knight listen to FFTF director Al Farrabee

This Op-Ed column was printed in The Oregonian September 11, 2000.

Risk of restarting Hanford reactor not worth it

Too many things can go wrong for a project whose benefits can be produced elsewhere

IN MY OPINION William Kinsella

Once again, the U.S. Department of Energy is considering restarting its Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford.

Hanford Watch believes that in preparing its environmental impact statement, the Department of Energy has made erroneous assumptions and has created misleading impressions. These need to be re-examined with the full involvement of, and full disclosure to, the public.

They include:

That future demands for medical isotopes cannot be met using other facilities. At a recent public hearing in Portland, the Department of Energy's representative acknowledged that they can. While there is a genuine need for these isotopes, claiming that FFTF is needed to produce them is a red herring argument that obscures other crucial issues surrounding the reactor.
That future needs for plutonium to power NASA space missions cannot be met using existing supplies, supplemented by foreign sources if necessary. The environmental impact study provides no warrant for the needs assumed and downplays the foreign source option in a spirit of "nuclear protectionism."
That cost information can be separated from the environmental impact study. Annual budgets for staffing, training and maintenance would directly affect public safety and environmental impacts.
That nonproliferation considerations can be separated from the environmental impact study. Encouraging the proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear materials puts the environment, the American public and the global community at risk.
That existing safety analyses adequately represent the risks of accidents. FFTF is now more than 20 years old, and the Departmentof Energy is considering operating it for 35 more years. But the worldwide track record of other liquid sodium-cooled reactors is not encouraging: two have suffered partial meltdowns and one leaked hazardous coolant.
Finally, perhaps the most egregious assumption is that more wastes and contamination are acceptable at Hanford. The reservation, its environmental remediation workers and the Pacific Northwest community bear a staggering burden of waste — the largest of any site in the Western world — which will threaten the site and the region for generations to come.

Adding new wastes would interfere with the Energy Department's stated mission to clean up Hanford and regain public trust.

In addition, the environmental impact statement is not a disinterested scientific study. It is a marketing tool that advocates for its authors' interests, with the appearance of scientific objectivity.

Many of us who follow the Hanford story feel a sense of interminable frustration. FFTF was ordered shut down years ago, and despite the creative and costly delaying efforts of those who identify most closely with it, no compelling need for restarting it has been shown.

It's time to heed the advice of a wide range of independent technical experts and of an increasingly alienated public by shutting FFTF down and moving on toward more productive goals.

William Kinsella, an assistant professor of communication at Lewis and Clark College, is a member of Hanford Watch, www.hanfordwatch.org.