nuclear-news

The projected amount of waste is relatively low, enough to cover a football field 7 feet deep.
But the radioactivity is high: 160 million curies, more than three-quarters of the radiation contained in 177 leak-prone underground tanks at Hanford. Those tanks are the focus of the nation’s largest nuclear cleanup project.

The DOE is considering permanent storage for “Greater than Class C” waste, which doesn’t include used nuclear fuel but includes waste with radioactivity that can last more than 10,000 years……
The government says permanent, secure storage is badly needed for radioactive castoffs from medical procedures, including cancer treatment, university research, oil and gas exploration and other industrial uses.
That material, scattered across the country at thousands of sites, could be stolen by terrorists for a radioactive “dirty bomb,” advisory committees have told the DOE.
It accounts for about a quarter of the waste volume, but just 1 percent of the total radioactivity from the projected waste.

Almost all the waste’s radioactivity — 98 percent — would come from reactor metal removed from decommissioned nuclear power plants, most in eastern and Midwestern states, DOE documents show.

At Hanford and four other potential sites, the waste would be buried in sealed bore holes or shallower sealed trenches, or stored in surface-level vaults covered with soil and clay. That’s better than the temporary storage now, the government says, which increases cancer risks across the nation….
Opponents, including Heart of America Northwest and the state of Oregon, say Hanford is the wrong place to bring the waste given the ongoing cleanup and the potential for radioactive contamination of the Columbia.

Heart of America Northwest and other activists also accuse the government of downplaying the cancer risks of trucking the material through populated areas such as Portland and Spokane. Disposing of the waste would require 12,600 truck trips or 5,000 rail shipments over 60 years, DOE estimates.

The hearing Thursday is one of nine nationwide to gather public comment on DOE’s draft environmental impact statement. It runs from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Doubletree Hotel, 1000 N.E. Multnomah St., near Lloyd Center.Permanent storage of highly radioactive nuclear waste at Hanford to be debated | OregonLive.com