January 17, 2012

By H. Darr Beiser
From the USA TODAY

HANFORD SITE, Wash. – Seven decades after scientists came here during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess.

The U.S. government is building a treatment plant to stabilize and contain 56 million gallons of waste left from a half-century of nuclear weapons production. The radioactive sludge is so dangerous that a few hours of exposure could be fatal. A major leak could contaminate water supplies serving millions across the Northwest. The cleanup is the most complex and costly environmental restoration ever attempted.

And the project is not going well.

December 1, 2011

PRESS STATEMENT

Contact:Tom Carpenter, 206-419-5829, tomc@hanfordchallenge.org

Seattle, WA:  Hanford Challenge today sharply criticized a report from a team of contractorselected experts that it says downplayed the seriousness of safety culture problems at the Hanford nuclear site.  

“The report is a veiled attack on safety-culture oversight.  It failed to acknowledge some of the most explicit indicators of the vit plant’s flawed safety culture.  There was no mention of disclosures from three important safety experts on the Waste Treatment Plant who have gone public and filed concerns about suppression of technical and safety issues and putting schedule and cost before safety,” said Tom Carpenter, Executive Director of Hanford Challenge. Carpenter noted that this includes the Manager of Nuclear and Environmental Safety, DOE’s top scientist on the project, and the former Manager for Research and Technology. 

 

For Immediate Release Nov. 21, 2011

Contact: Gerry Pollet, JD; Executive Director                             

(206)382-1014 / cell: (206)819-9015

 

The US Department of Energy (USDOE) informed Washington State today that it is not able to meet the court approved schedule it agreed to in October, 2010 for building the massive plant to turn liquid High-Level Nuclear Waste in leaky tanks at Hanford into a glass, referred to as the Vitrification Plant.

 

Heart of America Northwest, the region’s leading Hanford Clean-Up watchdog group had objected to the highly publicized court settlement in 2010 between the USDOE and State, under which the USDOE was allowed to take an extra 22 years – to the year 2040 - to empty massive leaky, decades old, Single Shell Tanks of High Level Nuclear Waste in exchange for what USDOE and Washington State said would be a court enforceable schedule to build the Vitrification Plant.

Nov. 11, 2011

By Annette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald

Hanford official Joe Franco has been named to lead the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for the Department of Energy.

Franco, the DOE assistant manager for the Hanford river corridor, will become manager for the DOE Carlsbad Field Office.

The office oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, the nation's repository for transuranic waste generated during the research and production of nuclear weapons. It's where Hanford's transuranic waste, typically debris contaminated with plutonium, is sent for disposal in rooms mined out of an ancient salt formation 2,150 feet below ground.

Nov. 6, 2011

By Annette Cary
From Tri-City Herald

Do not expect that the $115 billion estimated to be needed to complete environmental cleanup work at Hanford will be adequate to finish the job, according to the Hanford Advisory Board.

The board sent a letter to the Department of Energy and its regulators Friday saying that the estimate does not include cleanup work the board expects may be needed and also does not include fully developed cost estimates for some work.