[ RadSafe ] Hanford Contamination Spreads

[Norm Cohen]

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From: "Janette Sherman" <toxdoc.js at verizon.net>
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Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 12:06:44 -0400

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/228573_hanford15.html

Radioactive contamination at Hanford is on the move

It is 'not just staying in place,' warns report by watchdog group

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Radioactive dust in a Tri-Cities attic and plutonium-tainted clams in
the Columbia River are red flags signaling that contamination from the
Hanford Nuclear Reservation is in the environment and moving into the
food chain, a watchdog group says.

After finding radiation in river mud, mulberry bushes and deer and
mouse scat, the Government Accountability Project says better testing
is needed to determine how widespread the potentially dangerous
material is and where it's going.

The Seattle-based non-profit group, which is releasing its findings
today, says it has measured radiation in lichen that is twice as high
as previously believed.

"It's not just staying in place," said Tom Carpenter, director of the
group's nuclear oversight campaign. "It's getting to areas where there
are people."

The U.S. Department of Energy spends $2.8 million a year monitoring
radiation in water, soil, plants and animals on and around the
multibillion-dollar Hanford cleanup project.

DOE officials and their contractors said the watchdog group's results
were not surprising and that they encourage outside scrutiny.

"The levels that they're dealing with really aren't out of line with
what we've been dealing with for years," said Ted Poston, an
environmental manager with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the
company tracking environmental pollution for DOE.

"The Department of Energy encourages environmental groups ... to do
independent sampling and take us to task," said Dana Ward, DOE project
manager for the public safety and resource-protection program.

Ward and Poston said they needed more time to carefully review the
report to determine its validity. Regardless, the government is
protecting the public through its monitoring, Ward said.

Key findings from the GAP report include finding traces of plutonium in
pike minnows and clams pulled from the Columbia near Hanford, in
south-central Washington. Tests are still being performed on a sturgeon
recently caught offshore. Other specimens analyzed in the $50,000 study
were collected last year.

Contamination was also found upstream of Hanford, leading to
speculation that fish could be spreading the radioactivity, though
there could also be non-Hanford sources for the contamination.

Land across the river from the cleanup is part of the Hanford Reach
National Monument and accessible to the public. The segment of river
wrapping around Hanford is renowned as part of the last free-flowing
stretch of the extensively dammed river.

"People are out there fishing and eating the fish," Carpenter said. If
the government is finding plutonium in the pike minnow and clams, "they
sure haven't reported it."

It's well known that radioactive material escaped from Hanford, home of
the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor and source of atomic bomb
fuel. Since its creation during World War II, billions of gallons of
waste were dumped into the soil and radiation released into the air.

Back in the 1960s -- Hanford's heyday -- radiation from the site was
measured as far as the coasts of California and Canada, said Dirk
Dunning, a Hanford nuclear specialist with the Oregon Department of
Energy. "Was there stuff released? Unquestionably," he said.

Government officials know that radioactive groundwater is still flowing
to the river tainted with radiation. It's still in the soil at the
586-square-mile reservation and has been detected in tumbleweeds that
roll across the desert site.

What concerns Carpenter is the presence of the radioactive and other
dangerous chemicals moving from the soil and water and into plants and
animals offsite that can spread the contamination, increasing the risk
of exposure for people.

None of the radiation detected presented an immediate risk to human
health, according to the report.

Even so, the results worry Tim Jarvis, a former toxicologist with
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Jarvis, who reviewed the report,
said the detection of radiation in the attic dust of a Richland home
was "shocking."

"I'm sitting here in Richland. I've got a 25-year-old home," Jarvis
said. "I don't know how much radiation's in my attic."

The researchers did not determine what type of radiation was in the
attic, but know it's not plutonium and does not pose a risk to people
living there.

Dunning said that he had not studied the report. Other researchers with
his department had read an earlier draft and noted in a written
response concerns with its limited scope. The response stated that it
"lacks scientific rigor."

Carpenter and Marco Kaltofen, president of Boston Chemical Data Corp.,
which did the sampling for the report, agree that their research is not
definitive.

They want more testing done, preferably by an independent source
outside of DOE or their contractor. Federal officials said they'd be
willing to discuss the research with the watchdog group.

A better assessment of regional contamination is essential, critics
said, if the cleanup -- which could cost $60 billion and continue until
2035 -- is going to be successful.

"This study says, 'We're a third party. We're citizens. And where we
look, we find (radioactivity).' " Jarvis said. "So DOE, where in the
hell did it go? How much, and where is it?

"If DOE knows it has escaped, why isn't it out getting it?" he asked.
"It's their job."

P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or
lisastiffler at seattlepi.com

© 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer



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"A time comes when silence is betrayal.
Even when pressed by the demands of
inner truth, men do not easily assume
the task of opposing their government's
policy, especially in time of war.
Nor does the human spirit move without
  great difficulty against all the apathy
of conformist thought, within one's own
bosom and in the surrounding world."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

 
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