RADIOACTIVE IN WASH STATE

Analysis Triples U.S. Plutonium Waste Figures
Matthew L. Wald, July 10, 2010 (NY Times)

"…Plutonium waste is much more prevalent around nuclear weapons sites nationwide than the Energy Department’s official accounting indicates, said Robert Alvarez, a former department official who in recent months reanalyzed studies conducted by the department in the last 15 years for [the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State]; the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory; the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C.; and elsewhere.

"…[T]he problem is most severe at Hanford…[in] south-central Washington that was taken over by the federal government as part of the Manhattan Project. By the time production stopped in the 1980s, Hanford had made most of the nation’s plutonium…[It] does not pose a major radiation hazard now, largely because it is [guarded and controlled]…But government scientists say that even in minute particles, plutonium can cause cancer, and because it takes 24,000 years to lose half its radioactivity, it is certain to last longer than the controls…[and, in a few hundred years, the plutonium could reach…the Columbia River…"

Hanford today. (click to enlarge)

"The finding on the extent of plutonium waste signals that the cleanup, still in its early stages, will be more complex, perhaps requiring technologies that do not yet exist. But more than 20 years after the Energy Department vowed to embark on a cleanup…[it] has been weighing whether to try to clean up 90 percent, 99 percent or 99.9 percent of the waste…

"Government officials recognize that they still have a weak grasp of how much plutonium is contaminating the environment…In 1996, the department released an official inventory of plutonium production and disposal. But Mr. Alvarez analyzed later Energy Department reports and concluded that there was substantially more plutonium in waste tanks and in the environment…The biggest issue is the amount of plutonium that has leaked from the tanks, was intentionally dumped in the dirt or was pumped into the ground…"

Plutonium tanks at Hanford. (click to enlarge)

"Plutonium was first manufactured in World War II for use in bombs. (The one that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945 originated with plutonium made at Hanford.) For decades, the government produced it in military reactors by bombarding a natural element, uranium, with subatomic particles called neutrons, converting uranium to plutonium, and then using chemical processes to harvest the plutonium.

"The new analysis indicates that the chemical separation process was not nearly as efficient as the government claimed and that a lot of the plutonium was left behind in various stages…It also suggests that estimates of plutonium production by the Energy Department and its predecessors, including the Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan Project, were not nearly as accurate as scientists and bureaucrats said they were…Mr. Alvarez’s analysis, based entirely on Energy Department documents, shows that the amount discarded as waste was actually…nearly three times [what was previously believed]…"