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[Ether_Snake]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/23/radiactive-waste-leak-washington-state

Six underground storage tanks at a nuclear facility in Washington state are leaking radioactive waste, but there is no immediate risk to human health, officials say.

The newly discovered leaks, at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, come one week after the US energy department revealed that radioactive waste was found to be escaping from one tank at Hanford.

[...]

"There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks, which are more than 5 miles (8km) from the Columbia River," Inslee said. "But nonetheless this is disturbing news for all Washingtonians."

The governor said Chu told him that his department initially missed the other five leaking tanks because staff there did not adequately analyse data.

"This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford," he said.

The energy department issued a brief statement acknowledging that six waste tanks were found to be leaking.

No "immediate" danger doesn't mean much really.

"It points to the age of the tanks and how there's going to be an increased probability of this happening in the future," she said. "When waste is in the tanks, it's manageable. Once it's out of the tanks and in the soil, it's much harder to manage it, remove it, and down the road you're adding to contamination in the groundwater that already exists."

Production of plutonium materials at the site continued through the Cold War and ended there in 1989[/U] as work shifted to cleanup of nuclear and chemical waste at Hanford, considered one of the largest and most complex such projects in the country. Weapons production at the site resulted in more than 43m cubic yards of radioactive waste and 130m cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, which says that approximately 475bn gallons of contaminated water have been discharged into the soil.

 

[EightBitNate]

I blame the marijuana.

 

[VASPER]

First post wins, yeah GOV spend that money on fighting the drug war and not taking care of your RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL!

 

[Tacitus_]

The news here said that this is the most problematic nuclear site in the US and it consumes 2/3rds of their cleanup budget - 2 billion dollars.

Stop fucking around and fix it properly instead of applying bandaids over and over again.

 

[out0v0rder]

Washingtonians

 

[Izayoi]

Washingtonians

Wanna fight about it?

 

[commedieu]

There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks

Oh fuck off. You can't say this about radioactive material. You can't spin radioactive leaking.

 

[Naked Snake]

http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/

 

[Technosteve]

they are secretly making a mutant army

 

[Ushojax]

There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks

Oh fuck off. You can't say this about radioactive material. You can't spin radioactive leaking.

 

[Jay Sosa]

Turtles!

 

[Cow Mengde]

It's the Kraang!!!!

 

[Brawndo Addict]

The Hanford cleanup has a long and storied history of incompetence, poor funding, failed engineering, and general mismanagement. It is a national tragedy that our national government apparently feels that cleaning up nuclear waste leaking into groundwater and the Colombia River is such a low priority. For god's sake if there was ever a project where the moral obligation was to throw tens of billions of dollars a year at it, you would hope nuclear waste would be it.

The original agreement in 1989 hoped to have it completely cleaned up by 2019, and the current optimistic timeline now hopes it will be finished by 2050. That's assuming that the reasons for the delays don't continue to wreak havoc with the cleanup efforts, and I see no reason why a lack of funding, failed engineering, and a general disregard for safety by management will somehow magically correct themselves. They like to say construction is "half-done" while ignoring the fact they have yet to resolve fundamental engineering problems and intrinsic design flaws that are integral for the entire cleanup method to work at all.