Contaminated US site faces ‘catastrophic’ nuclear leak

More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford in Washington State. Most are over 50 years old. Already 67 of the tanks have failed, leaking almost 4 million litres of waste into the ground.

There are now “serious questions about the tanks’ long-term viability,” says a Government Accountability Office report, which strongly criticises the US Department of Energy for delaying an $8 billion programme to empty the tanks and treat the waste. The DoE says the clean-up is “technically challenging” and argues that it is making progress in such a way as to protect human health and the environment.

The DoE’s plan, however, is “faith-based”, says Robert Alvarez, an authority on Hanford at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. “The risk of catastrophic tank failure will sharply increase as each year goes by,” he says, “and one of the nation’s largest rivers, the Columbia, will be in jeopardy.”

New Scientist

GAO Report