Hanford cleanup scores gains but draws criticism
A falling cleanup budget and growing plumes pose long-term challenges
RICHLAND, Wash. -- Dick Wilde is on the verge of big trouble.
Ahead of him, the last free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River rolls through the Washington desert. Fall chinook salmon gather in famed spawning grounds, luring heron, bald eagles and people pulling 30-pound hogs from the water.
Underfoot, millions of gallons of water tainted with chemicals and radioactive elements flow toward the Columbia, a legacy of Hanford Nuclear Reservation's decades of atomic bomb work.
Wilde's job is to keep the Western Hemisphere's most polluted place from literally running into the clean and productive river, where it could threaten the health of plants, fish and people.
Cleaning Hanford's groundwater, one of the nation's most challenging environmental tasks, is starting to draw more attention and mark some successes. Near Hanford's defunct H Reactor, for instance, a seep of groundwater spent years polluting the Columbia with chromium (VI), a chemical that can harm developing fish.
"This chrome was getting into the best salmon nesting site at the Hanford reach, which is right here," Wilde said. "I fish right here."
Since 1994, pumps and chemical treatments have removed hundreds of pounds of chromium. The groundwater is now clean enough to drink and soon will be safe for young salmon, Wilde said: "We did the whole job here."
But for each success, more dirty plumes continue to spread, some beyond the reach of existing cleanup technology. Meanwhile, Hanford's overall budget is falling. And problems with bigger programs, including construction delays on a $6 billion waste treatment plant, compete for resources.
Some regulators and activists worry that Hanford's owner, the U.S. Department of Energy, lacks the interest or money to clean up the groundwater completely.
"It's really still almost at the bottom of the heap" of priorities, said Paige Knight, president of Hanford Watch, a Portland nonprofit.
Continue reading this article from the Oregoinian:
Hanford cleanup scores gains but draws criticism
Learn more about Hanford cleanup issues from Earth Share organizations Heart of America Northwest and Government Accountability Project].
