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Introduction The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere and a major Northwest environmental issue. It is a serious long-term threat to the Columbia River, which Oregon depends on for power generation, farm irrigation, fishing, transport and recreation. (more) Mission Our mission is to educate the public on Hanford cleanup issues, and work to increase public participation in the Hanford decision making process. Contact us Hanford discussion email list
A Dimly Burning
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For news updates, please see our Facebook page at: Upcoming hearing on disposal of more dangerous waste at Hanford Paige Knight, Hanford Watch, May 6, 2011
Hanford Watch asks the public to attend the public hearings on bringing more dangerous nuclear waste to Hanford. We have not "cleaned up" the waste that we have had for the past half century. Why would we allow more? This EIS -- environmental impact statement -- addresses "containing" waste that is not acceptable for near-surface disposal. It must be more stringent. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations require disposal of these types of waste in a geological repository. Should Hanford be considered or deemed a geological repository? These wastes would only be hazardous for 500 to 1,000 years... Please attend one of the meetings and bring some common sense and public values to the ears of the Department of Energy! Pasco, WA
Portland, OR Brief Overview of Draft EIS
Jacob Darwin Hamblin, The Oregonian, March 26, 2011 The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan is a potent reminder of how vulnerable humans are to the shrugs and twitches of nature. Nuclear power advocates are quick to say that the compromised Japanese reactors were of an old design. But Japan is a sophisticated, technologically savvy nation. If a nuclear catastrophe can happen there, it can and will happen anywhere. And it raises again the question of the kind of energy we should encourage on a state, nation and world scale. But for all the talk about safety, design, clean air and energy consumption, what's often forgotten is a much deeper issue: the passage of time. (more)
Dr. Janette Sherman, MD, CounterPunch, March 24, 2011 A little over six months ago I wrote: " Given profound weather
effects (earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, etc.), human fallibility,
and military conflicts, many believe that it only a matter of time
before there is another nuclear catastrophe. Nuclear fallout knows
no state or national boundaries, and will contribute to increase
in illnesses, decrease in intelligence, and instability throughout
the world. The economic costs of radioactive pollution and care
of contaminated citizens are staggering. No country can maintain
itself if its' citizens are economically, intellectually, politically,
and socially impoverished." While 25 years separates the sites and the events that led to the catastrophes at Fukushima and Chernobyl, the effects will be very similar – and will remain so for years to decades to centuries. (more)
Dr. Ira Helfand, Other Words, March 28, 2011 As the radioactive contamination of food, water, and soil in Fukushima, Japan worsens, the media is continuously reassuring us that these levels are "safe." But there is no safe level of radiation. Yes, at lower levels the risk is smaller, but the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science has concluded that any exposure to radiation makes it more likely that an individual will get cancer. The press is reporting that 100 millisieverts (mSv) is the lowest dose that increases cancer risks. This simply isn't true. According to the NAS, if you are exposed to a dose of 100 mSv, you have a one in 100 chance of getting cancer, but a dose of 10 mSv still gives you a one in 1,000 chance of getting cancer, and a dose of 1 mSv gives you a one in 10,000 risk. Those odds sound fairly low for one individual, but if you expose 10,000 people to a one in 10,000 risk, one of them will get cancer. If you expose 10 million people to that dose, 1,000 will get cancer. There are more than 30 million people in the Tokyo metropolitan area. (more) |
Chernobyl cleanup survivor's message
for Japan:
Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the long cleanup of Chernobyl, was a 35-year-old engineer at a nuclear plant in Ozersk, Russia, in April 1986 when she and 13 other scientists were told to report to the wrecked, burning plant in the northern Ukraine. It was just four days after the world's biggest nuclear disaster spewed enormous amounts of radiation into the atmosphere and forced the evacuation of 100,000 people. Manzurova and her colleagues were among the roughly 800,000 "cleaners" or "liquidators" in charge of the removal and burial of all the contamination in what's still called the dead zone. She spent 4 1/2 years helping clean the abandoned town of Pripyat, which was less than two miles from the Chernobyl reactors. The plant workers lived there before they were abruptly evacuated. Manzurova, now 59 and an advocate for radiation victims worldwide, has the "Chernobyl necklace" -- a scar on her throat from the removal of her thyroid -- and myriad health problems. But unlike the rest of her team members, who she said have all died from the results of radiation poisoning, and many other liquidators, she's alive. (more)
Spent fuel concerns about Columbia Generation Station Karen Dorne Steel, The Spokesman-Review, March 27, 2011 Critics challenging the safety of Washington state’s only commercial nuclear power plant say it should not get its license renewed until all questions about the integrity of its spent fuel storage systems are answered in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan. In the most serious nuclear catastrophe since the 1986 Chernobyl explosion, a fuel storage pond at the Dai-ichi nuclear complex’s No. 4 reactor in Fukushima, Japan, may have caught fire after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami when the rods lost their protective water covering, resulting in a hydrogen explosion. “Spent” fuel is contained in uranium-packed rods that no longer produce enough energy to fuel a nuclear reaction inside a reactor. But the spent fuel still contains dangerous levels of radiation, which can harm people and contaminate the food chain if released into the environment – an ongoing reality in Japan. Now, attention is turning to the safety of the nearly 72,000 tons of spent fuel rods from 104 commercial nuclear reactors stored at 77 sites in the United States. Among that number is Hanford’s Columbia Generating Station, 10 miles north of Richland – a facility for which new information is emerging about the increased potential for seismic activity in that region. (more)
Chris Busby, CounterPunch, March 28, 2011 Since the Fukushima accident we have seen a stream of experts on radiation telling us not to worry, that the doses are too low, that the accident is nothing like Chernobyl and so forth. They appear on television and we read their articles in the newspapers and online. Fortunately the majority of the public don’t believe them. (more) |
