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New analysis triples plutonium waste figures

 Posted by on July 13, 2010
Jul 132010

From Green Right Now Reports



Workers check spent fuel shipment for radiation before it leaves the K-East Basin annex at the Hanford nuclear facility

Alvarez says the plutonium does not pose a major radiation hazard now, largely because it is under “institutional controls” including guards, weapons and gates. Because plutonium takes 24,000 years to lose half its radioactivity, the danger is almost certain to outlast existing methods of control.

So far, the cleanup, which began in the 1990s, has involved moving some contaminated material near the banks of the Columbia River to drier locations. The effort has included building a factory that would take the most highly radioactive liquids and sludges from decaying storage tanks and solidify them in glass.

In 1996, the department released an official inventory of plutonium production and disposal. But Mr. Alvarez analyzed later Energy Department reports and concluded that there was substantially more plutonium in waste tanks and in the environment. The biggest issue is the amount of plutonium that has leaked from tanks, was intentionally dumped in the dirt, or was pumped into the ground.
