Portland state of the site meeting

Portland IndyMedia, Jan. 24 2003

On Wednesday night, there was a public meeting to address the “State of the Hanford Site”. The meeting took place at the OMSI Auditorium and lasted several hours. Around 100 people showed up, including representatives from the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Washington Department of Ecology, numerous watchdog groups, and many citizens concerned about the cleanup progress for our nation’s largest nuclear waste dump.

Hanford has the distinction of processing the plutonium used to create the atomic bomb that incinerated the people of Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Hanford is also noted for a secret Air Force experiment called Green Run, which involved the intentional release of large amounts of radioactive elements into the atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest, over a two-day period in 1949.

Mike Gearheard of the EPA began the discussion by highlighting some of the progress made at the site including the relocation of half of the 2100 tons of spent fuel from the ”K-basins” located near the Columbia River, to a less dangerous location on the site. He expects the other half to be relocated by July of 2004. Gearheard noted the progress on the decommissioning of the 8 nuclear reactors along the river; on the cleanup of the hundreds of crude nuclear waste dump sites on the reservation, and the successful transfer of 80% of the millions of gallons of liquid waste from the leaking single-walled tanks to newer double-walled tanks.

Keith Klein spoke next about the progress of the $2 billion per year cleanup effort. Klein talked about the approach being taken to deal with the massive soil contamination caused by several sources including the estimated 1 million gallons of liquid waste that has leaked from the failed storage tanks. This contamination has made its way into the groundwater, which in turn has found its way into the Columbia River. The current strategy lacks any proposal to clean up this contamination, but focuses on ways to prevent the problem from getting worse. The main facet of this plan is to prevent any more water from filtering through the contaminated soil. Klein reports that around 400 billion gallons of water was added to the water table in the past from indiscriminate drainage practices. Further, the “footprint” of the contaminated area will be reduced from 585 square miles, to 70 square miles, and the 4 tons of plutonium on site are to be packed in safer containers and shipped out. Klein would like to see 4 shipments per month of the tens of thousands of tons of trans-uranic radioactive waste to leave the site in the future.

Next was Mike Grainey of the Oregon Office of Energy. Grainey voiced his concerns with the groundwater contamination, truck shipments of more waste to Hanford over Oregon highways, and delays in the vitrification plant design and construction. Vitrification is the current plan for dealing with the 53 million gallons of liquid waste remaining in the tanks. It involves melting glass frit, and blending it with the waste in order to produce a more stable and portable form of waste. He mentioned Governor Kulungoski’s intention to involve Oregon in the decision making process at Hanford, and to advocate for a rapid cleanup effort.

Greg deBruler of Columbia River Keeper was the first watchdog group spokesperson to speak. He pointed out the 4.3 billion year half-life of uranium, (the time it would take for half of a sample to radioactively decay), and criticized the plan to allow the “reduced footprint” area to remain contaminated, an illustrated how the contaminated area would bloom and spread over the years, and continue to contaminate the groundwater. Mr. DeBruler also sharply criticized the Bush (yes I mean Dubya) plan to ship 70,000 truckloads of radioactive waste to the Hanford site. He also criticized the plan to ship trans-uranic waste, considered to be particularly dangerous, to the site for ”temporary” storage.

Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, followed with a brief presentation outlining his primary concerns. Among those were groundwater contamination, and waste importation to the Hanford site. He described the need for a revised Environmental Impact Statement before considering the shipment of even more waste to the Hanford site.

Then came a public discussion period where comments and questions were posed to the panel. There were many good questions and comments, but for the sake of brevity, I will highlight just a few. First was a man named George Shepherd (I’m guessing at the spelling of audience names) who called himself and his family “down-winders”. He pointed out that his sister had died of cancer, and now his nephew was also dying of cancer as well. In a moving and emotional presentation, he made the following statements:

“You have the power over lives. This isn’t a joke; this isn’t theater. This is a moral tipping point for your life.”

“My nephew will die. He’s 14 with bone cancer.”

“Please be deliberate. Please, it’s not just YOUR future.”

Brent Foster, attorney for the Columbia River Keepers, stated that ‘Oregon should have a voice’ with respect to Hanford. He further asserted that ‘progress, and speed of cleanup is being traded for TOTAL cleanup’, and that ‘200 years from now, the groundwater SHOULD be drinkable’.

Barbara Pererra of Oregon said, “ I’m angry and sarcastic. We don’t want it cleaned up cheaply, we want it cleaned up well.”

After the public comment period came a presentation from Roy Schepens of the DOE Office of (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) River Protection. Schepens is an experienced nuclear waste dump recovery director who was brought in to replace the former Hanford director, Harry Boston. He claims 25 years of nuclear site cleanup experience. He discussed the vitrification plant construction status, and his push to find ways to do the project more safely and faster. He later stated that the two main contractors, the Bechtel Corporation and the Fluor Corporation, had each been docked some $300,000 for project delays and technical errors.

Tom Fitzsimmons of the Washington State Department of Ecology then had his turn. Fitzsimmons outlined the responsibility for his staff to oversee 3000 sites in Washington. He talked about the liquid waste tanks and asked rhetorical questions like: What does tank closure mean? When is it clean enough? His primary concerns were with respect to how much waste would be left in the tanks, what will be done with the associated equipment like pumps and piping, and what will be done with the retrieved tank waste.

Paige Knight, longtime nuclear activist and founder of local watchdog group Hanford Watch, noted that a lot of progress had been made. She was still worried about the tank situation. She noted that the vitrification plant was being built, but that the engineering team was falling behind the construction speed. Knight also cautioned against shipping waste to Hanford ‘temporarily’.

Todd Martin added that interested parties had worked very hard for the last 15 years to start construction of a vitrification plant. He added that acceleration of the project should not be pursued at the expense of sacrificing environmental or quality standards.

More comment period followed including Lynn Porter who brought up the previous problems of poor contractor oversight due to inadequate DOE staffing, and the 10-month delay in the vitrification project schedule. Mr. Schepens responded by making the assurance that the vitrification project would be fully operational by 2010, and that he was concentrating on the quality of his staff and not the quantity. Schepens also stated that Bechtel was increasing its engineering support and project controls.

Here are a few final audience comments. A Native American man from the desserts of New Mexico, hinted that many of his fellow countrymen would likely frown very LOUDLY at the idea of shipping nuclear waste to the dessert, as was proposed at one point in the discussion. Robin Klein pointed out that the plumes from the million gallons of leaked liquid waste have expanded, and the facilities have only continued to decay, since the start of the cleanup effort.

Several pointed questions came from Cherrie Hollenstien that went unanswered, including the question of ‘what is going to be done about the groundwater contamination?’ Joyce Follingstad pointed out that ‘we have been fooled over and over again’ (regarding promises made about Hanford). ‘We believe what we see.’

To end on a positive note, the Fast Flux Test Facility, a Hanford nuclear (I mean nookyewlar) reactor that costs around $42 million per year of taxpayer money to keep on a standby status, looks like it may FINALLY be shutdown (again).