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| | | published Tuesday, August 16, 2011 | 590 Views :: 0 Comments |
Aug. 16, 2011
By Annette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald
The man who is expected to be the new Department of Energy head of environmental cleanup for the nation wore a tie Monday for his first official visit to Hanford.
But David Huizenga owns a Richland Bombers T-shirt.
He already is a fan of the doughnuts at the Spudnut Shop and the Thai food at the Emerald of Siam, both at the Richland Uptown shopping center. He also knows his way around Badger Mountain from regular hikes to its top.
The Hanford visit was a homecoming of sorts for Huizenga, who is DOE's new acting assistant secretary for environmental management as he waits for Senate confirmation to head DOE's environmental cleanup program.
But in 1985, he was starting his career as a research engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.
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| | | published Sunday, August 14, 2011 | 1097 Views :: 0 Comments |
August 13, 2011
By Annette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald
The Department of Energy has taken a look at all the environmental cleanup yet to be completed at the Hanford nuclear reservation and come up with a big price tag: $115 billion.
That's what it projects will be required to finish environmental cleanup in about 2060 and then prevent any intrusion into areas, such as landfills holding radioactive waste, until 2090.
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| | | published Sunday, August 14, 2011 | 1073 Views :: 0 Comments |
ANA has been closely monitoring the situation reported on in the following article, which quotes ANA member Tom Carpenter and refers to 2011 ANA Whistleblower Award winner Walt Tamosaitis. We've strongly been urging Congress to require complete testing of Hanford's mixers and support the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in their Hanford oversight.
Engineers and scientists say equipment being installed by Bechtel Corp. at the Hanford site in Washington state poses risks, but the Energy Department is letting work continue.
August 14, 2011
By Ralph Vartabedian
From the Los Angeles Times
The Energy Department has asserted that Bechtel Corp. underplayed safety risks from equipment it is installing at the nation's largest nuclear waste cleanup project, according to government records.
A federal engineering review team found in late July that Bechtel's safety evaluation of key equipment at the plant at the Hanford site in Washington state was incomplete and that "the risks are more serious" than Bechtel acknowledged when it sought approval to continue with construction, the documents say.
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| | | published Friday, August 05, 2011 | 375 Views :: 0 Comments |
August 4, 2011
By Annette Cary
Tri-City Herald
RICHLAND -- After 10 and a half years, the $12.2 billion Hanford
vitrification plant is 60 percent complete, by the calculations of
Department of Energy contractor Bechtel National.
The milestone includes engineering, procurement, construction and start-up and commissioning-related activities.
“Woohoo!” was the reaction of the regulator for the project, the
Washington State Department of Ecology, as summed up by Dan McDonald,
the project manager for Hanford waste treatment.
“We’re very pleased with the progress,” he said. Hitting
the 60-percent mark positions work to continue the transition from the
design and build phase of the massive project to the commissioning and
operating phase, he said.
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| | | published Monday, August 01, 2011 | 384 Views :: 0 Comments |
July 30, 2011
By Annette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald
The draft report making recommendations on the future of the nation's nuclear waste released Friday by the Blue Ribbon Commission was met with concerns and criticisms by those with Hanford interests.
They feared at best the draft report's recommendation could lead to high-level radioactive waste remaining at Hanford longer, and at worst that more waste could be shipped to Hanford or that Hanford's own waste would remain at the site indefinitely.
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| | | published Wednesday, July 06, 2011 | 356 Views :: 0 Comments |
July 05, 2011
ByAnnette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald
The federalgovernment is asking for the public's opinion as it decides how muchof the soil contaminated by plutonium and other radionuclides andchemicals in the heart of Hanford should be dug up.
TheDepartment of Energy with the Environmental Protection Agency ispreparing to make one of the first decisions about environmentalcleanup in the approximately 10 square miles of central Hanford,where permanent disposal of radioactive waste is planned.
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| | | published Tuesday, June 21, 2011 | 355 Views :: 0 Comments |
June 20, 2011
By Jenna Greene
The National Law Journal
In some ways, Carole Means' teenage years on a farm in southeastern
Washington state in the 1950s sound so wholesome, almost idyllic. She
ate homegrown fruit and vegetables, fish from the nearby Columbia River,
and drank milk from the family cows that grazed along its banks.
The
farm commanded a view across the river of the Hanford Nuclear
Reservation, the world's first full-scale plutonium reactor. Hanford
produced most of the material for the U.S. arsenal of nuclear bombs,
including the one dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. For local
residents, the plant was a source of pride — their unique contribution
to winning World War II — and of jobs, employing 50,000 people at its
peak.
It was also catastrophically toxic. Starting in 1944, the
plant silently released huge amounts of radiation into the air, water
and soil — sometimes intentionally, the government now admits.
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| | | published Tuesday, June 21, 2011 | 724 Views :: 0 Comments |
June 20, 2011
Action Alert from Hanford Challenge
A federal agency tasked with
investigating nuclear safety at federal facilities issued a strongly-worded
letter to the Secretary of Energy on June 9, 2011 finding that “the safety culture at the Waste Treatment Plant is in need of prompt,
major improvement and that corrective actions will only be successful and
enduring if championed by the Secretary of Energy.” The
Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board (DNFSB, the Board) interviewed 45
witnesses and examined 30,000 pages of documents during its investigation.
DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur wrote: “The Board's investigative record
demonstrates that both DOE and contractor project management behaviors
reinforce a subculture at WTP that deters the timely reporting,
acknowledgement, and ultimate resolution of technical safety concerns.”
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| | | published Tuesday, June 21, 2011 | 458 Views :: 1 Comments |
June 20, 2011
Editorials/Opinion The Seattle Times
THE Department of Energy and a primary contractor at the
Hanford nuclear reservation are not protecting worker health. The
failure threatens to compromise the cleanup mission and, ultimately,
protection of the public.
Such a blunt assessment did not come from a disgruntled employee or a
union rep, but the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, created in
the wake of past abuses.
Worker health and safety issues have been as persistent a problem at
Hanford as technical delays and shredded budgets. The safety board was
invented in the absence of state and federal oversight of worker safety.
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| | | published Tuesday, June 14, 2011 | 922 Views :: 0 Comments |
By Annette Cary From the Tri-City Herald
RICHLAND — Failings in the safety culture at Hanford's vitrification plant are endangering the success of the $12.2 billion project, according to a strongly worded report from the national DefenseNuclear Facilities Safety Board.
The board's investigation found that Department of Energy and contractor project management behavior reinforce a plant subculture "that deters the timely reporting, acknowledgment and ultimate resolution of technical safety concerns," the report said.
Accusations included burying technical reports that raised safety issues, admonishing an expert whose testimony to the board differed from DOE policy and creating an atmosphere that discouraged workers from raising technical issues that could affect the plant's safe operation.
The report called for Energy Secretary Steven Chu to step in, sayingprompt, major improvements are needed and will only be successful and lasting if he champions them.
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