
Blowing in the wind: Plutonium at former nuclear weapons site - knuththetruth
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-na-hanford-plutonium-exposure-20180330-htmlstory.html
======
monocasa
For those in CO, you might not remember the similar Rocky Flats fiasco.

The court cases had such funny stuff as overturning a jury verdict on appeals
as "the judges wrote that under the law, the presence of plutonium on
properties south of the Jefferson County plant, which closed in 1989 for
safety and environmental reasons, at best shows only a risk — not actual
damages to their health or properties."

[https://www.denverpost.com/2010/09/03/appeals-court-
tosses-j...](https://www.denverpost.com/2010/09/03/appeals-court-tosses-jury-
award-in-rocky-flats-case/)

These days, the site hasn't been tested in over a decade, in an area known for
top soil erosion. And now more and more houses are being built immediately
adjacent, with no warning to the homebuyers that this used to be a nuclear
waste superfund site.

On the 'plus side' they at one point tried to get rid of the plutonium waste
by combining it into a slurry and injecting it into the ground, which left us
with some of the first data on how hydraulic fracturing can cause an increase
in earthquakes.

~~~
iancmceachern
And now they've buried this information and are building thousands of homes
there. Literally thousands of families live on radioactive ground. I know
because we almost bought one.
[https://candelasglows.com](https://candelasglows.com)

~~~
themodelplumber
I'm largely ignorant of how this all works but what about somebody just going
door to door with a Geiger counter to spread some awareness?

~~~
JPKab
The problem with that approach is that the ground isn't radioactive at all,
and the commenter fell for disinformation on a local antinucleaer hippy
website. The houses were built upwind and uphill from the site, and the EPA,
state, and local governments have all hired independent third parties to test
for contamination. There is none. The area is now a wildlife refuge, and there
is no trace of health effects in animals in the area. I bought a home there
after investigating the data myself for over a year. I have a wife and two
kids, and would never put them at risk. The amount of radiation Colorado
residents are exposed to from the sun and ground minerals dwarfs anything from
Rocky Flats. There is zero data to back up the hippy claims. I work with data
for a living, and have actually found cancer clusters in the US around
refineries and chemical plants.

Tldr: a Geiger counter will show nothing here.

~~~
iancmceachern
[http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2010/2010-08-05-01.html](http://www.ens-
newswire.com/ens/aug2010/2010-08-05-01.html)

------
mirimir
The scale of the craziness at Hanford in the 50s-60s is difficult to
appreciate, or even to imagine. Many of us have taken a lab course in
qualitative inorganic analysis. You know, where you dissolve a sample in
nitric acid, precipitate with sulfate, filter, redissolve the precipitate,
precipitate with sulfide, filter, and so on. Eventually you understand what
metals the sample contained.

OK, so back in the 50s-6s, that's how they isolated plutonium from neutron-
exposed uranium. After aging in water for a few weeks, levels of short-lived
fission products were low enough that humans could manipulate the stuff,
behind several feet of steel, lead and concrete shielding, without immediately
lethal radiation doses.

But then, what they did was dissolve this shit in hot nitric acid, in huge
steel vessels. With clever mechanical manipulators. Even after aging, however,
levels of xenon-133 and iodine-131 were still quite high. And where do you
think they went? Up a stack, of course. What else? Abbeit through shielded
pipes, to protect workers.

But you know, they could only dissolve when the wind was blowing fast enough.
Because otherwise, the cloud of xenon-133 and iodine-131 overhead would
inflict dangerous radiation exposures to workers. They released _a lot_ :[0]

> The formally classified report Dissolving of Twenty Day Metal at Hanford
> states that Hanford officials initially planned to release approximately
> 4,000 curies of iodine-131 and 7,900 curies of xenon-133 but ended up
> releasing in actuality 7,780 curies of iodine-131, along with 20,000 curies
> of xenon-133 into the surrounding area's atmosphere within a seven-hour
> period. [1] In comparison, the March 1979 Three Mile Island accident
> released between 15 and 24 curies of radioactive iodine.

But hey, at least they didn't dissolve on days when the wind was blowing west
toward Portland or Seattle. Mainly they nuked local subsistence farmers.
Iodine-131 has a half-life of just eight days. That's short enough that levels
in commercial milk are low enough, given all the delays from feed to cows to
stores. But if you lived near Hanford then, and your kids were drinking milk
from your own cows or goats, they got dangerous iodine-131 doses to their
thyroids.

0)
[http://www.hanfordproject.com/greenrun.html](http://www.hanfordproject.com/greenrun.html)

~~~
gascan
_low enough that humans could manipulate the stuff, behind several feet of
steel, lead and concrete shielding, without immediately lethal radiation
doses._

Wait, for real? I have zero training in handling fissile material, but I
didn't think any significant level of radiation could make it through that
much shielding.

~~~
cocoablazing
There are rooms in some of these facilities that have been known as infinity
rooms because no readily available radiation meter would not saturate in them.

The radiation field of a freshly removed power reactor fuel element is so
strong that you couldn’t run past it fast enough to survive the dose.

~~~
gascan
I fully understand direct exposure can be lethal nearly instantly.

It looks like what I didn't understand is radiation-blocking of a material
(lead, concrete, water) is actually a decay function (half of the radiation
makes it through X feet) rather than an absolute function (no radiation makes
it through X feet).

In other words, given an infinitely radioactive source, you would require an
infinitely thick lead barrier to protect you.

Really, I should have guessed given everything else about radioactivity is the
same way.

~~~
mirimir
Right, it's just like transparency for visible light.

But many of the fission products in neutron-exposed uranium emit high-energy
gammas. And even lead is somewhat transparent.

Also, from what Google tells me, those "infinity rooms" at Hanford are
probably contaminated with plutonium-239. That's an alpha emitter, and alphas
(helium-4 nuclei) are pretty easy to stop.

------
erentz
Before people start criticizing nuclear power. This story is about the Hanford
Site. This is where they exclusively made plutonium for bombs, starting from
the Manhatten Project. It’s a very complex situation with waste all over the
site for a number of reasons, some of them really bad (aka management
incompetence, government outsourcing of responsibility, etc), some of them
sort of understandable (hey Joe, it’s 1945, we don’t know much about this shit
but it can’t possibly hurt anyone if we bury over there in this vast
wasteland. Don’t worry we’ll remember where it is... doesn’t).

Tours of the Hanford site are available to US citizens. Highly recommend
people also go to the Manahatten Project “B Reactor” out there which is
available to everyone.

~~~
pasbesoin
My primary concern with nuclear power is the human element. For which we have
a _long_ and well-demonstrated history of limitations that don't match
corresponding requirements.

In other words, we are creating something human history -- as well as
contemporary events -- demonstrate we do not have an enduring ability to
manage.

As they say, we can't put the genie back in the bottle. But we can perhaps do
something to limit scope, particularly where alternatives are developing that
are safer and, sliding down the development cost graph, more cost-effective.

P.S. I'll add that, until we can manufacture elements (more fully), I prefer
to keep these limited resource available for potential future use, when we
have acceptable alternatives -- for me, now, meaning solar, wind, hydro (all
forms of solar energy, essentially).

Who knows what need we might have of them, in the future? What if really going
to space requires them in significant quantity, but we burned them all up on
street lighting and casinos? ;-)

(Wouldn't it be ironic if further sources were in space, but we didn't have
enough to get there?)

~~~
StreamBright
Well we could manage to make flights safe I think we can make nuclear energy
safe. The biggest problem is that just -like security- safety is against
profits or if non-profit cases it is bigger cost.

~~~
elago
The site of every airplane crash doesn't become an inhabitable danger lasting
for multiple lifetimes.

~~~
pdeuchler
Neither do nuclear power plant meltdowns. Fukushima is habitable, Chernobyl is
habitable. Most of the concerns around nuclear waste are almost entirely
limited to military use. Storing spent fuel rods is a generally solved
problem. Most nuclear waste when generating energy can be re-used in other
contexts as well... military use creates the nasty by-products that can't be
reused.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
>Chernobyl is habitable

"Even today, radiation levels are so high that the workers responsible for
rebuilding the sarcophagus are only allowed to work five hours a day for one
month before taking 15 days of rest. Ukrainian officials estimated the area
would not be safe for human life again for another 20,000 years" \-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)
citing
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#cite_note-T...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#cite_note-
TimeDisaster-91)

~~~
mikeyouse
Even Fukushima, which released most of its radiation out to sea, still has 370
square kilometers of exclusion zone.. 90,000 acres of still-uninhabitable
land..

[http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-
english/en03-08....](http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-
english/en03-08.html)

------
code_duck
Great, I live a mile or two roughly downwind from a site at Los Alamos where
the DOE is removing the nuclear and toxic waste dump used for weapons and
research waste here for 30-40 years. I’ve felt somewhat assured that they have
the nuclear and toxic material secured, but realistically there’s no reason to
believe they are doing a competent job.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
There is a little Safecast[1] data from the area, which does show slightly
higher levels, but nothing too crazy. You could add your own readings[2] to
improve that (which has been on my list, downwind from Hanford).

1:
[http://safecast.org/tilemap/?y=35.665&x=-106.501&z=10&l=0&m=...](http://safecast.org/tilemap/?y=35.665&x=-106.501&z=10&l=0&m=0)

2: [https://github.com/Safecast/General/wiki/Safecast-
Devices](https://github.com/Safecast/General/wiki/Safecast-Devices)

~~~
code_duck
Interesting link, thanks. It looks like the readings are just along a major
roads in Los Alamos?

I had figured there must be some independent monitoring here, because many
retired nuclear engineers live in the area of the community by the cleanup.

With the history of the lab here, there are many sites that are contaminated,
but most of them are within the lab bounds. Of course, dust doesn’t respect a
fence. There have been some worrisome incidents, like when a water pipe burst
in Los Alamos and sent water through an unregistered historic buried dumpsite
that contained nuclear or toxic materials.

I looked into rented a workshop across from an empty field with the fence
around it, and looked into the history of the site. It had been the waste dump
it for the first several years of the lab during the Manhattan project. It
turned out they had cleaned up the site a few years ago. Would I have been
exposed to any radioactive or toxic and dust if I had been there during that
time? Who knows. It’s not clear if they would’ve told me if I was. At the end
of the street there was a milling building for uranium, plutonium and
beryllium and the water treatment facility for the site, which poured all of
the water straight into the ground. They’be been cleaning that up recently.

In my own work, I generally prefer to leave toxic debris undisturbed until I
am ready to deal with it safely. Like asbestos, it doesn’t harm you when it’s
sealed and undisturbed. It’s often worse to clean it up poorly than to leave
it there.

------
MrBuddyCasino
„Congressional staff say the contamination is not surprising because the
Energy Department offers bonuses to contractors if they meet tight schedules.
But there are no bonuses for preventing worker contamination or preventing
releases to the environment, they say.“

So that’s how it works, huh?

------
mcguire
" _Seven employee automobiles were contaminated at the plant site, according
to a Jan. 9 letter from the state Department of Ecology to Doug Shoop, the
federal site chief at Hanford. When one worker demanded that his contaminated
car be purchased because vent ducts were potentially still contaminated,
Energy Department contractors nixed it and offered him a coupon for a free
detailing from a car wash, according to collective bargaining grievance
records cited by union officials. The account was confirmed by two other
employees._ "

Welcome to the world of contracting for the federal government.

------
dmix
> The mess has dealt the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons environmental
> management program yet another setback, following more than a decade of
> engineering miscalculations across the nation.

I get how some insignificant/"checklist checking" agencies can cause
governments to fumble, or worse markets with complex fast changing
circumstances resulting in revolving doors of hiring within industry or
uselessly slow reaction timeframes....that's almost old news at this point, a
reality we've seemed to have accepted.

But when agencies with such critical mandates as this are also so
dysfunctional then it makes it hard not to cynical about the wider system from
which these "solutions" continually spring from, or maybe it's just the
fundamental constraints from which they operate (such as the type of people
who typically staff these agencies).

~~~
mcguire
Keep in mind that this governmental function, producing nuclear weapons, was
started during WWII, when it had to be done _now_ and it didn't really matter
if anyone got hurt because the alternative was getting shot in France or on
some Pacific island. After that, it was buried in incredible secrecy and has
never had to produce visible results. In that sort of environment, dysfunction
breeds unchecked.

------
jessaustin
For many years you could walk around Paducah KY with a blacklight at night,
and see the fluorescence of hex dust that had blown over from the gaseous
diffusion plant. Safety has been a rather inconsistent priority in this
industry.

------
shaqbert
Not that surprising given the current leadership and budgetary direction at
the Department of Energy. Micheal Lewis ran a great piece [0] on the Nuclear
facility safeguards about a year ago, and it appears it is quite prophetic...

[0]: [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-
energy...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-
michael-lewis)

~~~
hackerman12345
This appears to have happened months before Perry became the DOE leader.

~~~
shaqbert
You are right. My point is moot.

Alas, when we could not even fix Hanford with money in the past, I am a little
worried about doing it with less cash going forward.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Money doesn't solve what's effectively a bad corporate culture.

------
trhway
USSR/Russia still operating version of Hanford
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak) .

The area around has been thoroughly contaminated over the 70 years. An example
of a disaster there - a lake that the nasty stuff had been dumped into gets
dry somewhat with wind blowing away that dust from the opened lakebed.

------
wazoox
The promise of nuclear power in the 60s and 70s was "we don't know yet how to
manage the waste, but in a few decades we'll have it sorted out". We didn't.
Nobody knows how to safely decommission old nuclear facilities, how to manage
nuclear waste for thousands of years.

~~~
cfadvan
We know how, it’s just that nobody wants to pay for it or have it stored in
their state. This is a failure of politics, not technology. Ironically the
result is that of course we still store the stuff, but it’s on-site in pools
all over the country, which is much less secure than known alternatives.
Because no one is willing to spend political capital to centralize and
modernize storage in their backyard, it’s in _everyone’s_ backyard.

~~~
7952
But proposals need to be politically viable in order to actually be built!
Human weakness is a serious failure mode in complex engineering projects and
needs to be treated seriously.

~~~
girvo
But what about when collectively we decide to optimise for short-term rather
than long-term? I mean that’s basically the modus operandi of politics, and
that means that engineering problems — following your line of thinking — must
do the same? Because getting politicians and even regular people to care about
the future has proven intractable, to my mind.

~~~
7952
That seems to be true. Although I think people can be pursuaded to care about
such things. But the problem needs to be framed as a moral question rather
than just an objective one. That we should adopt particular technology because
it is the right thing to do.

The difficulty is that these issues will become politicised and emotional. You
have people like Trump emerge who think that clean energy is an abomination.
But perhaps that is a step we have to go through in order to win the argument.

~~~
girvo
> Although I think people can be pursuaded to care about such things. But the
> problem needs to be framed as a moral question rather than just an objective
> one. That we should adopt particular technology because it is the right
> thing to do.

Although it's somewhat distasteful to a lot of engineers, I completely agree
with you here. It's difficult, but if we don't play politics, we will lose.
Iterated prisoners dilemma, almost.

> The difficulty is that these issues will become politicised and emotional.
> You have people like Trump emerge who think that clean energy is an
> abomination. But perhaps that is a step we have to go through in order to
> win the argument.

In some ways, I think it is, yeah. A lot of the time, people (even technical
ones!) don't see the future negative uses of things as particularly dire, up
until it's about to come crashing down on their heads.

------
TheForumTroll
When they are done cleaning up they should start with all the places depleted
uranium is killing people years after the US was done bombing for peace.

------
waiseristy
I wonder how many years I've taken off my life ingesting copious amounts of
dirt at the ORV park just a few miles away from the Hanford site

