nuclear-news

Nuclear waste tank OK’d to keep leaking for 1 year News 5  Sep 30, 2014 By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) – A new deal allows a radioactive waste storage tank to continue leaking for more than a year before its contents are pumped out at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the nation’s most polluted nuclear site.

The deal to pump nuclear waste tank AY-102, announced late Monday, is between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Washington State Department of Ecology. Under the deal, pumping of the double-walled tank would not begin until 2016, and it would take a year to complete.

The deal has outraged critics of Hanford, which for decades made plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons.

“Every day this tank leaks creates additional dangers,” said Gerry Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, a long-time Hanford watchdog group. “Federal and state laws require that leaking tanks of any toxic waste must be emptied immediately. The Energy Department should not get special dispensation just because Hanford officials failed to take action over the past three years to have equipment in place to remove the wastes or to plan to build new storage tanks.”

Plutonium production created a huge volume of nuclear waste at Hanford, and the site is now engaged in cleaning up the nation’s largest collection of nuclear waste. The most dangerous wastes are stored in 177 giant underground tanks. The sprawling site is near Richland in south-central Washington.

Several of the older single-walled tanks at Hanford have leaked. But Tank AY-102 is the only newer double-walled tank believed to be leaking. The Energy Department said the leak is between the walls of the giant tank and has not reached the environment……….http://www.wkrg.com/story/26667570/nuclear-waste-tank-okd-to-keep-leaking-for-1-year