Latest News and Efforts from the Government Accountability ProjectAction Alert for Hanford Waste Shipments

4 Jan 2003 00:15:01 -0000

Action Alert for Hanford Waste Shipments

Tom Carpenter, Clare Gilbert

Over the December holidays, the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) began shipping 170 barrels of extremely radioactive nuclear waste to the Hanford Nuclear Site, even though no environmental analysis has been performed as required by law, and there is no licensed repository for the waste at Hanford. The nuclear waste contains hazardous and toxic chemicals and is so radioactive that it must be remote-handled by machines and cranes.

"These shipments are the first of tens of thousands of such shipments that the U.S. government plans to make to Hanford -- instead of cleanup, the Hanford Site is being turned into the National Nuclear Waste Dump without even a protest from the State of Washington," said Tom Carpenter, Director of the Government Accountability Project's Nuclear Oversight Campaign.

The U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE), after meeting with Washington State Department of Ecology director Tom Fitzsimmons, struck a deal with the State of Washington on Friday, December 13, 2002 whereby the State agreed not to file a restraining order to block the illegal waste shipments from coming into Washington, in exchange for a promise by USDOE to negotiate a schedule to clean up Hanford’s existing on-site waste and to remove twice as much waste as is being imported.

However, cleanup of Hanford’s burial grounds is already required by state law and the Hanford Clean-Up Agreement of 1989 (Tri-Party Agreement) and the new waste is much more radioactive and dangers than what the USDOE has promised to remove. Public interest groups were consulted only after the deal had been struck.

The Hanford Site – a former plutonium production factory in Southeastern Washington State -- is the most severely-polluted site in the world, outside of the former Soviet Union. Hanford contains a staggering amount of radioactive and chemically-contaminated materials stored in leaking, unlined storage pits, massive million-gallon waste tanks, and features an estimated 200 square miles of contaminated groundwater. During its 50 years of nuclear materials production, Hanford turned the Columbia River into the most radioactive river in the world. The onsite contamination will require cleanup costing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars and a decades-long commitment from the U.S. government.

The Remote Handled Transuranic (or "TRU") waste shipments to be shipped to Hanford are as radioactive as, or more radioactive than, the High-Level Nuclear Waste to be shipped to Yucca Mountain, but will be transported in trucks that are much less protective of radiation or accidents than Yucca bound trucks will be. The TRU waste will, in some cases, give off the equivalent of 100 full body x-rays per hour at the drum surface, which will likely affect people in cars traveling alongside the trucks. The first truckloads will come up I-5 and I-205 through Portland and through the Columbia Gorge en route to Hanford. Additional shipments would come across eastern Oregon, crossing the passes of the Blue Mountains or through downtown Spokane on I-90.

The Tri-Party Agreement between the USDOE, the US Environmental Protection Agency and Washington State already legally mandates that USDOE clean up buried wastes at Hanford. Gerald Pollet, Executive Director of Heart of America Northwest, stated, "For Washington to accept more radioactive and deadly waste in exchange for USDOE promises to carry out what it is already legally bound to do defies logic and common sense." Additionally, as recently as April of 2002, Washington State Attorney General Christine Gregoire told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that, “There will be no quid pro quo. You can’t say we’ll clean up in trade for taking the nation’s waste.” Gregoire’s staff was ready to file a Temporary Restraining Order in federal district court when the deal was struck.

The TRU shipments are illegal because USDOE has not assessed properly the dangers of transporting this radioactive waste through Oregon and Washington, the risks from storing and treating these wastes at Hanford, or alternatives to this scheme. USDOE plans to store illegally the waste in areas at Hanford without proper permits. The most radioactive wastes mixed with chemicals will be stored for at least a decade in unlined soil trenches, which are already leaking wastes and deadly vapors.

The Government Accountability Project and Heart of America Northwest (the 16,000 member group leading the fight for Hanford clean-up) urge the public to CONTACT THEIR STATE AND FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES TO OPPOSE THIS AGREEMENT AND THESE SHIPMENTS of additional radioactive waste to Hanford.

The public will have a chance to voice opinions at the upcoming "State of the Site Meetings" which will occur every Wednesday throughout January 2003, starting in Seattle on January 8, Hood River on January 15, Portland on Jan. 22 and Kennewick on Jan 29.

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Action Alert for Hanford Waste Shipments

Tom Carpenter, Clare Gilbert