New missions imperil Hanford cleanup

Paige Knight, Hanford Watch
This article was printed in The Oregonian, December 12, 1998

Seventeen Northwest environmental groups have recently sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson opposing any new production missions at Hanford. Currently proposed missions include restarting the Fast Flux Test Reactor (FFTF) and the Fuels and Materials Examination Facility (FMEF) to produce tritium for nuclear weapons, to produce plutonium-238 (and reprocess it) for use in space batteries, to transfer the battery assembly operations from the Mound site in Ohio to Hanford and to make medical isotopes.

The recent history of opposition to any nuclear restart at Hanford, only 215 miles from Portland, stems from the extensive and ominous contamination of land and ground water from the production of plutonium for atomic bombs over the past 50 years, and from promises from the two most recent former Secretaries of Energy and former President Bush -- that the only mission left at Hanford is that of cleanup.

Since those promises have been made, costly delays have occurred in the cleanup of the two most serious threats: the 177 Hanford waste tanks that are already leaking into the ground water which threatens the Columbia River; and the K-Basins, which hold 2300 tons of highly radioactive irradiated (spent) fuel from weapons production and sit only 400 yards from the banks of the Columbia.

As the cleanup budget for Hanford continues to shrink, the costs of cleanup continue to rise by the millions and billions of dollars. Cleanup timelines are extended further and further into the future.

Meanwhile the DOE and the Hanford communities seek new production missions. Keeping the FFTF on hot standby robs $32 million from Hanford's diminishing cleanup budget each year. The environmental community objects to the addition of any more waste streams which will only increase the threats to the Columbia River.

To date it has been impossible for the public to receive accurate and complete information about the risks and impacts of these new missions; either about potential accidents from refitting the FFTF for a new type of mission or about the transportation of nuclear materials through Oregon to and from Hanford. Once Hanford accepts one or two new missions there will be no end to other production opportunities. Meanwhile the infrastructure (buildings, tanks and basins) continue to age, presenting even greater risks to the region. Any serious accident at Hanford will devastate the Northwest's economy.

We cannot stand by and refuse to fight for the protection of the Columbia River. We need all of the Columbia River interest groups on board: commercial, economic, recreational, tribal and environmental. At the recent 'Governance and the Columbia River Basin' Conference, Hanford Watch stated the necessity of considering Hanford's potential impact on the river's health in all of these discussions. A number of the 400 attendees questioned why these concerns are seldom, if ever brought up in such forums.

We can no longer afford to ignore the risks -- health,environmental and economic -- to our region from Hanford. We must face the reality that Hanford's wastes could someday poison our river beyond recovery. This issue must be on the front burner of these discussions. Oregon's state and federal legislators as well as the Oregon Office of Energy have all affirmed that cleanup should be the number one priority at Hanford. We citizens must unite, bringing our power and reason to bear upon the far-reaching decisions that are being made or not being made today lest we see no cleanup progress and lose the Columbia, the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest.