
Six tanks at Hanford nuclear site in Washington are leaking - stfu
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57570857/wash-state-governor-6-underground-nuclear-tanks-leaking/
======
ChuckMcM
This is a boondoggle. Its important to clean it up but the situation has been
exploited by lax oversite and sloppy administration. When I first read about
the Hanford cleanup plant, saw the expense, and saw how much had been done, I
immediately thought "Hmmm, I wonder what program the CIA is funding here."

While I realize it sounds a bit tin-hatish (ok a lot tin hat like) the
"standard" way to launder money in the government budget is to create an
important but remote project, and pour money into it. Nobody in Congress is
going to say "We need to cut funding to cleaning up this site." and also more
importantly there really isn't any real penalty for it not getting done. So it
becomes a foil for some other "off budget" activities. Local politicians do
this too, we had a county supervisor who effectively embezzled money by
convincing the county to pay too much for park maintenance. That excess was
being funneled back to them as a sort of kickback.

Anyway, the 'simple' plan of building new tanks and moving waste from the old
set to the new set isn't being done. And most of what is there isn't being
identified anyway so it is hard to say what constraints there are on the
solutions. Not well managed at all sadly.

------
bane
Fun anecdote: about a decade ago I spent some time at the National Lab that's
right next door to this site. They made you wear dosimeters at all times, even
if you weren't anywhere near the nuke stuff. If it was your first time, they
gave you a guidebook to what all the alarms, sirens, klaxons and bells meant
and what to do if you heard them.

Things like, "a high pitched alarm with a bell is a fire alarm, evacuate the
building to a designated evacuation point and wait"

or "a siren with no flashing strobes means that you should move quickly to a
designated decontamination area and begin decontamination procedures"

the one that that everybody thought was both scary and fun "if you hear 'the
howler', run"

no indication of direction or location to meet, just...scatter to the four
winds

nobody asked under what conditions you might hear this "howler"

~~~
Someone
Four winds? Unless you have other indications (direction of boom, light flash,
mushroom cloud), go upwind. If upwind is an obviously bad idea, orthogonal to
the wind may be better than downwind, especially if you cannot move fast.

~~~
elpachuco
So what do you do when it changes direction. Keep it simple, just get away as
fast and far away as possible.

~~~
Someone
Look at the graph in [http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/er/planning-guidance-
for-r...](http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/er/planning-guidance-for-response-
to-nuclear-detonation-2-edition-final.pdf), pages 29, 31, and 32. You can be
well outside the 'minimal damage' zone, but inside the 'dangerous fallout'
zone for miles.

For an extreme non-nuclear example, read
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaprun_disaster#The_disaster>: _"12 passengers
from the rear of the train who successfully broke a window followed the advice
of another escaped passenger who had been a volunteer fire fighter for 20
years, and travelled downward past the fire and below the smoke."_

You may be hosed either way, but choices you make can have huge effects on
your chances.

------
pasbesoin
Every time someone comments in favor of the safety of nuclear energy, I point
to incidents like this. Totally manageable. Totally mis-managed -- or,
unmanaged.

Sure, maybe technically we know what to do. (Although I find this debatable on
the timescales involved.)

But the _human factor_ \-- _especially_ at any significant timescale (even
just a few decades, or even years, or even _in current time and practice_ ).
Zero reliability.

Humans have not demonstrated any capacity to properly and reliably manage
technology requiring such levels of commitment and diligence.

P.S. This is one reason that corporations should pay significant taxes.
Because they should _directly_ bear a significant portion of the costs of such
fuck ups, and the preventive mitigation of them (e.g. effective regulation).
In order for this to happen, they need to be contributing while they are
extant and are making money from the endeavors. If we don't do this, society
ends up chasing a non-corporeal ghost after the fact, or even when corporeal,
one that no longer has any financial motive to pay. Eventually, the cost ends
up being dumped indirectly and indiscriminately upon the general public. And
often, the worst of the costs (e.g. health issues) end up being dumped upon
those least advantaged and most defenseless.

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alan_cx
Maybe its a British thing, but I'm very amused by the phrase "nuclear
reservation". Cant wait for the Chernobyl Country Park or the Fukushima Fun
Zone. Love the way soft cuddly words are connected to "evil" words in a
tragically predictable attempt to gloss over things.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It fits how we use the word reservation in the west. This was also hanford's
name I think when they constructed the site during WII as part of the
manhattan project.

~~~
alan_cx
US may be, but reservation in the UK means nature, pretty birds, and not
treading on wild flowers. Weird people wearing bobble hats and walking boots
armed with binoculars sneak through ticking off things they have seen in
little reference books. (Note we in the UK don't shoot them, nature or the
weird people). Certainly not some scary nuclear thing at all. In dear old
Blighty we call such places: "scary nuclear places".

~~~
gph
Well in America the word Reservation was used for land set aside for Native
tribes long before the idea of a "nature' reserve ever sprang up. That's why
we typically use refuge for what you would call a reservation.

The only reason the word reservation has a positive connotation to you is
because of what it colloquially refers to in your country. It's base
definition is really anything that's been reserved for a specific purpose,
doesn't have to be for wildlife preservation.

I doubt whoever named this facility back during WWII-era was attempting to
soften up the image of it. Given that it was part of the Manhattan Project
they probably didn't even think the general public would be aware of it.

------
JagMicker
If you really want to read some cool things about Hanford, check out the DOE's
cleanup page, and the IEER reports about cleaning up the "canyons".

And remember that they built those now-leaking tanks in the 1940's and '50's.
There's also some great accident reports about the "accountability" tanks at
Sellafield.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=ieer+hanford>

<http://www.hanford.gov>

<http://www.wiseinternational.org/node/2558>

~~~
redwood
Great reminder that nuclear waste represents a multi decade, even multi
century/millenium challenge in some cases. This makes me very wary of a
federal government with no plans for dealing with the piling up waste now that
yucca mtn (an admittedly problematic project) has been cancelled. The feds are
raising money for this but will it be enougb? Of course not!

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nwh
I'm sorry, but CBS is just ridiculous. Why did that article need to be spread
over ten pages? The splits are even in the middle of sentences.

~~~
OGinparadise
"Why did that article need to be spread over ten pages?"

ads and reportedly Google Panda rewards these tricks (theory is that by
clicking on many pages instead of one means you like the sites)

~~~
mkr-hn
Google makes hundreds of small changes every day. The specific impact of any
large and widely reported update is probably overwhelmed very quickly by the
little changes. Specific manipulations of Google don't typically survive long.

But it is possible CBS has a very naive "SEO expert" suggesting something like
that.

~~~
OGinparadise
Sounds like an official Google statement. The reality, however, is different.

~~~
mkr-hn
I base it on the panic-filled threads I see in places like Warrior Forum and
Blackhat World every time Google changes something.

~~~
OGinparadise
What they do is totally different from this, they usually engage in very black
hat tactics.

------
seanmcdirmid
I lived in West Richland as a small kid while my dad was working at Hanford. I
hope they can fix this, it's a very nice area (sage brush, scrub, the snake
and Columbia rivers)...

~~~
VonGuard
My in-laws are generational Hanford-ites: the grandparents built it, the
grandkids are cleaning it up. If anyone ever goes up there, there is a
FASCINATING jet-boat tour you can take up the Hanford river where they show
you about 6 or 7 of the reactors. The tour driver knows all about the history
of these fission plants, and he tells it during the 2 hour tour.

Highly recommended, fascinating, and a great merging of bird watching and
nuclear history.

~~~
scotje
There are also a limited number of public site tours each year, focusing on
the B Reactor. (The first full scale fission reactor in the world.)

<http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/>

I've gone twice and it is really fascinating. You get to stand about twenty
feet from the face of the reactor core, walk around the control room, etc. I
have some pictures and video I can share if anyone is interested, although I'm
sure some Googling can turn up lots of them as well.

One of my favorite anecdotes is that the valve covers for all the cooling
pipes are open and have to remain that way so that the Russian inspectors can
verify each year that there is no evidence that the reactor has been in
operation. (Not sure if these inspections are actually still happening.)

Also for arms control purposes, there is an open pit elsewhere on the site
where decommissioned US Navy reactors are stored. (Russia can monitor the
number and position of them via satellite.)

~~~
caf
I would be interseted to hear which US/Russian treaty involved verification of
plutonium production reactors or naval reactors. I'm not aware of any such.

(There are plans for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, but discussion has on
that has been indefinitely stalled in the Conference on Disarmament by
Pakistan).

~~~
scotje
I had to do some Googling, but the PPRA treaty would appear to explain the
valve cover inspections: <http://dtirp.dtra.mil/tic/synopses/ppra.aspx>

Still looking for what would apply to the Navy reactors.

~~~
caf
That's great to read, thanks! I imagine the experience earned on verifying the
PPRA will be valuable when a verification mechanism for the FMCT is designed.

------
reirob
Here a link about a related article from more than a year ago about the same
site: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3479972>

Seems like the warning from this article come true and the site starts
polluting the environment. What a mess.

~~~
defrost
Starts?

For anyone that's not heard of Hanford before do look up its significant
history.

Speaking out of turn I've probably met an anti corrosion engineer that might
have worked there as part of team looking at issues to do with long term
storage and after a few drinks there might have been a lot of head shaking.
[1]

[1] [http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2011/12/09/friday-image-
the-h...](http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2011/12/09/friday-image-the-hanford-
rumor-rat-1951/)

------
gtani
The Seattle Times has slightly different content, including the Oregon senator
saying he will extract a promise from the incoming Sec. of Energy (and
probably more funding) for this

[http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020415477_hanfordlea...](http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020415477_hanfordleakxml.html)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Keep in mind Hanford is on the border, close enough for Oregon to care.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Yes. The Columbia and it's wildlife are part of the economic base of the area.
Salmon are still a really big thing here and there is plenty of political
pressure to protect them.

But also Ron Wyden is on the senate energy committee, so this is directly in
his pervue as well.

If you'll let me ramble a sec: it's hard to feel positive about our congress
as a whole, but I've been impressed by Oregon's delegation over the last few
years. Wyden and Blumenauer have impressed me as well informed and articulate.
Wyden in particular is one of the few members of congress with an accurate
understanding of privacy and intellectual property concerns on the internet.

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ck2
$2 Billion a year! All the good that could do, sigh.

~~~
tallanvor
Cleaning up the mess is a good thing, and easily worth $2 billion a year.

Of course, it could have cost a lot less if they had started properly 20 years
ago.

~~~
alan_cx
Now, yes. Absolutely agree. Pretty sure that was ultimately the blokes point.

Tangent... This though is the problem with the "democratic" process changing
governments every 4 (whatever) years, leading to no real long term policies,
and no motivation to even care. This is why the Chinese will dominate the
future. They can do long, very long, term planning. We "democratic" westerners
need to sort this ASAP. Some how we need a way to make it worth politicians
think long term. We in the UK are soon to run in to a massive power problems,
which really should have been planned for 20 odd years ago too. No one did
anything, and building power plants tends to take a while. And given the soon
to come panic, we'll be paying top dollar for these things to be built as we
will be over a barrel, while also paying over the odds to make up for the
energy short fall. Heh, I bet Iran gets a new nuclear power station before we
do.

Another tangent... Perhaps its time we the people properly took matters in to
our own hands and got on with micro power generation and using less power.
Work towards energy self reliance.

Sorry, that had noting to do with this discussion... Oh well. Got to ramble
somewhere :)

------
raintrees
Jeez, they're still leaking? I wrote about this place for a high school class
in '82... Had nightmares for weeks afterward.

