RE: "terrible problems"

["Dukelow, James S Jr" <jim.dukelow@PNL.GOV>]

Franz Schoenhofer wrote, in a message I generally agreed with:

-----Original Message-----

From: Franz Schoenhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT]

Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 2:36 PM

To: Thomas J Savin; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Subject: Re: Temelin



     <snip>



 And it seems that it is intended to cover

the terrible problems which the USA faces (Paducah, Yucca Mountains, Hanford

etc.) by telling stories about other countries and how ridiculous they are.



Direct flames to my private address.



Franz



=============



Not a flame, but a comment.



The view of anything seems to get fairly fuzzy from ten thousand kilometers.



I can't speak to the issue of Paducah, but problems at Yucca Mountain are

entirely political and the "terrible problems" at Hanford are basically

non-existent.  We have significant contamination problems from fifty years of

manufacturing nuclear weapons materials, but that contamination is safety

sequestered and is not a short-term risk to the population or the environment,

nor a long-term risk if the current cleanup is allowed to proceed to some

reasonably-defined end point.



I have lived very comfortably for more than twenty years in the Tri-Cities in

Washington State, which sits just downstream of the Hanford reservation on the

Columbia River.  The risks to local residents from continuing operations and

cleanup operations on site are modest to negligible, although through some

strange physical/chemical phenomenon, by the time you get 200-300 kilometers

away the risks are enormous and the problems "terrible".  For us, its just

another day in paradise (assuming you have some tolerance for a desert

environment).



Best regards.



Jim Dukelow

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Richland, WA, USA

jim.dukelow@pnl.gov



These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my

management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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