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Waste & Environmental Cleanup
Featured Environmental Story
CNN interviews residents of Shell Bluff, GA about the lack of monitoring in their community which hosts a nuclear power station and is across the Savannah River from a radioactive superfund site.

Cleanup Sites
Click here to view the Department of Energy's list of Environmental Management sites by state
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Past and Present

The Department of Energy (DOE) has produced radioactive materials for nuclear bombs; designed, built, and tested nuclear weapons; and developed reactor and other technologies with little concern for the environmental harm those activities cause. The inevitable result is that all DOE sites are polluted. Nevertheless, DOE remains far more interested in protecting its pollution-causing activities than in correcting the harm they have already done.



DOE is not meeting its legal and ethical responsibility to clean up the legacy of more than 60 years of radioactive and toxic contamination. Instead, DOE is promoting nuclear activities that will create additional pollution and threaten the health of future generations. Currently, water near some DOE facilities, such as Paducah, KY, and Pantex, TX, remains unfit to drink. Some of the nation’s major water sources, including the Columbia River, Snake River Aquifer, and Ogallala Aquifer, are threatened.


After declaring the Yucca Mountain project dead, the Obama Administration called for a "Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future" to determine what should be done with US high level nuclear waste. The Blue Ribbon Commission has issued its draft report. A final report will be issued in January

Federal funds aim to clean up nuclear wasteland
published Friday, January 29, 2010  2783 Views :: 5 Comments
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
January 29, 2010 8:02 a.m. EST

VIDEO AVAILABLE AT CNN.COM: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/29/hanford.cleanup/index.html?hpt=C1

Hanford Nuclear Site, Washington (CNN) -- The federal government has set aside nearly $2 billion in stimulus funds to clean up Washington State's decommissioned Hanford nuclear site, once the center of the country's Cold War plutonium production.

That is more stimulus funding than some entire states have received, which has triggered a debate as to whether the money is being properly spent.

The facility sprawls across approximately 600 square miles of south-central Washington, an area roughly half the size of Rhode Island. It was built in the 1940s as part of the "Manhattan Project" to develop the first atomic weapon during World War II.

Millions of dollars and thousands of jobs poured into the remote area about 75 miles east of Yakima where nine nuclear reactors were eventually built.

During the Cold War, Hanford was a buzzing hive of activity, eventually becoming the main source of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear weapons program.

Decades of improper radioactive waste disposal earned Hanford the notorious distinction of being most contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere.

Today, the Hanford site is a virtual ghost town and those involved in the clean-up project say they will need every dollar of the federal stimulus funds.

There are still millions of gallons of untreated contaminated groundwater, hundreds of buildings used for plutonium enrichment that need to be torn down, and underground tanks that are full of radioactive sludge.

The stimulus money will reduce the clean-up time by years, according to Jon Peschong, who oversees the federal project at Hanford.

"It was perfect work, ready to go for the stimulus package," Peschong said. "Each day that passes the conditions worsen [and] the receipt of the federal stimulus money allows us to reduce the costs and also allows us to reduce the clean up footprint much sooner, years sooner."

The money is also created jobs for about 1,400 people at Hanford, including Joe Gill who manages a team that is tearing down equipment that is heavily contaminated by radiation. Despite the dangers of his job, Gill said it came just at the right time.

"I had managed a production warehouse facility for one of the largest companies in the world, [I] thought I'd be there for 20 years," Gill said. "We laid off 8,000 people in three months and they closed down our plant, [and] those jobs aren't jobs you just read the paper and get."

It is clear by watching Gill's team perform their time-consuming daily tasks that Hanford won't be decontanimated quickly. The workers have to suit up three to four times a day in protective gear. They break down contaminated equipment through a "glove box," allowing them to disassemble the equipment a room away through lead-lined gloves. Each time a worker removes their hands from the gloves, they must be wanded down by a colleague checking for any radiation exposure.

The large scale of the project and years of cost overruns have led critics to complain that stimulus money is being misdirected at Hanford. A report by Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, listed Hanford as one of 100 sites where stimulus money may have been wasted.

The Hanford clean-up "has been plagued by massive cost and schedule problems - and almost no progress," according to the report.

Gerry Pollet, who runs a Hanford watchdog organization, says he supports using stimulus money to rid the nuclear site of its radioactive waste. But he questions whether the funds are going where they are most needed.

"You are not seeing the value that we should be seeing for the clean-up and the environment," said Pollet, who heads Heart of America Northwest. "They are picking the low-hanging fruit, the easy projects that give very nice photo opportunities. But that doesn't cost $2 billion.

"Hanford is getting more money than many states in stimulus funds and you would expect to see real progress for clean-up [to] happen with those dollars."

While debate continues over whether and how stimulus dollars should be used, the Tri-Cities area that surrounds the Hanford site -- which includes Richland, Kennewick and Pasco -- is reaping the benefits of the clean-up boom.

Hanford began receiving stimulus dollars in March 2009, which helped the surrounding cities and towns avoid the catastrophe that has plagued other communities impacted by the recent economic downturn.

The Tri-Cities area has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Washington State, and the housing market has barely been affected by the recent economic downturn, according to the Tri-Cities Industrial Development council.

Ken Brutzman, who owns a local office furniture store, said his business was "at a standstill" last year before the orders from Hanford contractors started pouring in. Brutzman had to hire six temporary workers, two of which he may keep on full time, to deal with the boom in business.

"We are on track to have best year ever," Brutzman said. His business has been in his family for three generations and will likely stay profitable for several more generations since the Hanford clean-up project is expected to take another 40 years.

"It has my manufacturers raising their eyebrows saying, 'Wow how does that guy do that?'"
Resources

Public Comments


ANA's statement to the Blue Ribbon Commission at their Denver meeting in September 2011


ANA's comment on the April 2011 Department of Energy Greater than Class C Waste Draft Environmental Impact Statement.


FACT SHEETS

2011 ANA fact sheet on Nuclear reactors and Waste


Greater Than Class C Waste Fact Sheet from the Snake River Alliance


Department of Energy
Environmental Cleanup:�
Underfunded and Inadequate  2007


Yucca Mountain:
Not the Solution to Nuclear Waste  2007


Spent Fuel Reprocessing and the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership


ANA Water Report: 


DANGER LURKS BELOW
The Threat to Major Water Supplies from US Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Plants


GTCC Resources
The Department of Energy is seeking comments to determine the scope of the planned Environmental Impact Statement dealing with the "Disposal of Greater-Than-Class-C (GTCC) Low-Level Radioactive Waste." 

Watch this space and this page for resources helpful in composing your own comments.


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