The rush to arms produced billions of gallons of waste. Some of the hottest was funneled into concrete and carbon-steel tanks that today are decades past their projected life span. Some have spontaneously heated up or burped explosive gases. Sixty-seven are suspected to have leaked. At least a million gallons of radioactive goo has spilled into the ground and is working its way to the Columbia River.

The rush to arms produced this mess, and the rush to wars now are taking the dollars needed to do what we must do here to prevent further crisis. Health of our people, the landscape and rivers should be a priority.

How close is this radioactive goo to the Columbia River, or is it there already? Am concerned that most likely we would not be told anyway.

Just keep spending billions elsewhere on the war machine for whose benefit? What ever happened to those billions we shipped to the mid-east that went missing?

How close is this radioactive goo to the Columbia River, or is it there already?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site#Environmental_concerns

Several Bq per day, for decades = several TBq of radiation from the Hanford Reach all the way to the Pacific. Oh, and that's not even in the scope of the cleanup - they are only looking at what's still on-site.

I'm glad that they are at least trying to vitrify this crap - that's the only way to make it reasonably safe to handle that we currently have. It's unfortunate that they have a bloodsucking leech like Bechtel Corporation as the contractor to do it - we saw how good they manage construction expenses with the MAX lines, after all...

The cleanup of nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, along the Columbia River in south central Washington State, is a financial black hole

Of course it's a black hole.

It's also a great example of where business interests and the environment merge together. Thanks to the environmental interest of cleaning up that mess, it creates huge business opportunities for contractors to overcharge the government and "clean up" the mess, a process that will never truly end. The Tri-Cities has one of the lowest unemployment rates in all of the Pacific Northwest thanks to Hanford...it's as of the recession just missed it. All thanks to nuclear energy.

Take the spent fuel and resell it as MOX (Mixed oxide fuel=plutonium +uranium), transport it around the world to build more reactors, create more jobs and solve the world recession. Then take that spent fuel...hmmm. Shoot it to the moon?
This was the DOE's proposal for Hanford over 14 years ago.
This is not a solvable problem. Vitrification is one of those myths like carbon sequestering which allows the dirty game to continue.
Fortunately, neither myself nor my kids will likely suffer the "downstream" effects of Hanford. Beyond that, as they say in Joisey, fuggetaboutit.

The entire Hanford budget is essentIally nothing more than hush money, as DOE knows that when the money spigot shuts off, the loose lips stArt sinking ships and then the liability really starts to mOunt fast. The downwinders suit is just a taste of the Horror show that DOE is trying to keep a lid on.

The big vit plant is like the big phony tank force That the Brits staged near Calais before D-DaY, to persuade German spies that the invasion was hEaded there ... The folks there are all happy to have the hush money and enjoy extraordinary wages and bennies, all the while resolutely complaining abouT taxes, welfare queens, and electing idiots like Doc Hastings.

Jan 28, 2011 07:18 EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposal to quickly build up Afghanistan's military, key to a planned drawdown of U.S. troops, would cost the United States as much as an extra $2 billion a year, a U.S. congressional aide said.

No money for our own country.