Touring the tank waste vitrification facility

Paige Knight, August 16, 2003

I visited the Hanford Site on August 9, touring the building-in-progress of the Waste Treatment Vitrification facility. Wow, what a sight/site to see.

The workers have my deepest respect and gratitude. I have never passed by a construction site where it looked like every worker was working their hardest. Every worker seemed to know what it was they were doing and working together doing it. The facility and the tanks to hold incoming waste that are being built on site are gargantuan. Pouring the concrete, which is blocks and blocks of slabs 6-8 feet thick is an art in the desert, with ice machines, heat machines (for winter months). I think in order for progress to continue and to be of high quality, the workers who go the extra mile and put themselves at risk need to be honored. To me, the vit facility is the key to getting 53 million gallons of waste out of the tanks and into a more stable form.

Some of us believe that every company that does business at any Dept. of Energy site is corrupt and not doing all it should do. If we were to totally go with that belief, we may as well say, let the contaminants flow and do nothing. In my opinion, Bechtel, the main contractor of the Waste Treatment Plant, has a lousy track record in places here and around the world and yet I am seeing caring and commitment from the workers we met with this past week. You can't paint everyone with the same brush stroke. Yes, we need to remain more vigilant than ever, and get as much inside information as possible. Yes, we need to raise hell when it seems called for.

We had a chance to do that at our Hanford Advisory Board tank committee meeting at the site on Tuesday over the timing of the review of additional (supplemental) technologies for treating waste so that the DOE doesn't have to vitrify a majority of it. Few of us are in favor of that. We think the public process sucks. We think we are being ushered and slammed back into the era of secrecy. We have huge problems with the upcoming Tank Closure Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that is required for public input when half the information that we need to give good advice on it isn't even available yet. And we feel especially these days that the DOE, i.e., the Bush administration has absolutely no use for public interest or opinion.

So, do we pull out of the process and bitch among ourselves? I don't find that productive. I like the "in your face" approach. Each of us Hanford public interest groups have some of the media looking to us for  reactions and opinions. The story seeps out bit by bit, but the more interest and outrage we each and together express, the more the story comes to the public's

attention. I also believe in the slow process of building unlikely alliances to move things forward. The moves are slow but they are often forward. Not unlike life in general.

I would like to thank Joanne Oleksiak,a long time Hanford activist, for her articulate article in the August Portland Alliance, "Bechtel at OMSI, Less than Half the Real Story." She covers some of the history of Hanford, its lethal legacy and Bechtel, the current contractor for the vitrification plant and some of their nefarious history in the world of "environmental" projects. She brings in some of the raw, unadulterated history that we all need to reinvigorate our outrage and public demand for real solutions.

The question that I look at, as the president of Hanford Watch, is, should we have supported this project, knowing that OMSI and Bechtel would not give the story of government disregard for human health and the environment. We decided to support the project so that a broad audience of people, including youth, have at least the beginning of awareness about the existence of Hanford and its legacy of environmental contamination and poisoning of our rivers, air and land. I would love to see displays of fiesta ware and other graphic pictures of the damage caused to people and animals in this region and around the world by radioactive and chemical exposure, both purposeful and "accidental". It is highly unlikely that OMSI and/or contractors in the nuclear industry would finance such a project in such a public place.

The focus of this project was on the incredible scope of the cleanup of Hanford. It is the largest public works project in the country on the most contaminated site in the western hemisphere. It will take years of work, of public support and public oversight to have real cleanup. Our government and country is still in denial about the harm perpetrated on the world by unleashing atomic power. Artists and activists have certainly created such displays around the country over the last 2 or 3 decades, but these only reach a limited public. It is a challenge to all of us to use the OMSI exhibit as a starting point to educate ourselves and the public about our obligation to insure the cleanup of Hanford.