Don’t get too excited, I don’t think that this “leaking” is exactly as described. After reading the idiotic statement by Governor Inslee about the narrow band of measuring vs a wider band of measuring, and the claim that the tanks had a twenty year life expectancy, I decided to do a little research into the issue.
From a WSJ article posted last September. The feds are going after Bechtel and are claiming that Bechtel is not competent to engineer the project. The feds stopped the project.
“Separately, the DOE last month discovered radioactive material between the walls of one of the site’s newer double-shelled waste-storage tanks, which are designed to be superior to older single-shell tanks. The threat of leaks has been a concern for decades: In the past, according to a project website, one-third of the 177 underground tanks have experienced leakage of toxic material.”
So, the second tanks, not the original tanks, are leaking between the walls of the double sided tanks, not into the ground. The project was intended to replace the tanks by turning the nuclear waste into some kind of glass-like substance, solid, not liquid, that could not “leak”.
There is a lot going on here. First the land is on an Indian reservation. The Indians willingly offered to house the project. Second, the Democrats in WA and Oregon are looking for an environmental issue to demagogue because they are losing ground over the coal exports that they want to transport through WA and Oregon. Gregoire lost her appointment as head of the EPA over her support of the coal and some of the other Democrats know that support of coal is a poison pill here in the Pacific Northwest. Thus, the Hanford clean-up becomes the issue of the day. It is another non-issue that the Democrats are creating for the mid-term elections.
No, Eva, Hanford is not on an Indian Reservation.
There are areas such as the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain and possible burial grounds near the river that are of special interest to the tribes, but Hanford is not on an Indian Reservation. The nearest Indian Reservation is probably the Yakama (spelled correctly). Been right here, on various sides of the Hanford Project, all my life.