Hanford Officials Claimed Hazardous Waste Leak Was Just Rain Dripping

– Watchdog Warns More Leaks Are Likely to Occur Due to Ongoing Violations and Thousands of Illegally Stored Drums

The Hanford site represents two-thirds of the nation's high-level radioactive waste by volume. Today, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States. Courtesy: KOMO News

(KENNEWICK, WA) - Hanford officials claimed a leak of what has been confirmed as numerous hazardous wastes was just dripping “rainwater.” After confirming that hazardous wastes were leaking into the open from a concrete container at Hanford, the Washington Department of Ecology issued an “Immediate Action Letter” on Friday to the federal Energy Department (USDOE), which runs Hanford.

The leak at Hanford’s Central Waste Complex (CWC) was composed of cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

“So long as Hanford stores thousands of drums and containers of hazardous wastes which illegally contain liquids and whose contents are not known, the risk of fires, explosions, worker exposures and further leaks remain high,” said attorney Gerry Pollet, Executive Director of Heart of America Northwest, the region’s leading Hanford cleanup watchdog group. “It is long past time to have an enforceable schedule to remove and treat these wastes before we have another leak or, even worse, another explosion or fire.”

Heart of America Northwest confirmed this and other dangerous leaks have occurred in the past year from illegally stored wastes at CWC via a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the USDOE.

The April 2011 leak of what was legally supposed to be "dry" waste without liquids included both chemicals and Plutonium at levels measuring 1.2 million disintegrations per minute (DPM). Waste which leaked from the “dry” container exposed a worker at levels of 3,205 dpm on a worker. The leak was in 240-WB from a drum removed from the Central Waste Complex. This was one of three such leaks in a year.

The wastes have been illegally stored for 18 years without a permit.

Federal and state laws forbid storing wastes which are not dry and require that wastes be removed from storage to be treated within a year.

Wastes, including the drum which leaked in April, 2011, have been improperly misidentified as “debris”. “Debris means solid material,” as EPA summarizes the law.

The lack of a permit is only the tip of the iceberg. The wastes are stored without knowing what they are composed of and were misidentified (e.g., claiming they were dry "debris"). The explosion which lifted the roof off, and harmed 12 workers at, the Plutonium Finishing Plant in 1997 was caused by a similar violation: USDOE failed to remove hazardous wastes within a year as the law requires.

“The letter issued by Ecology fails to address the root causes of the leak in order to prevent a future leak, fire or explosion,” said Pollet. “We urge Ecology to issue an order to have all wastes properly characterized to ensure that explosive or flammable chemicals are properly stored, and that all the wastes are removed for treatment on an aggressive schedule in an enforceable permit.”

Ecology is holding hearings on a new hazardous waste permit for Hanford in May and June. However, the early draft of the permit covering the Central Waste Complex fails to ensure that the wastes will be properly characterized, removed and treated on a reasonable schedule.

Source: Heart of America Northwest
"The Public's Voice for Hanford Clean-Up"