Re: Hanford Cleanup Strategy

["Conklin, Al" <awc0303@hub.doh.wa.gov>]

I might throw a few random thoughts into this issue. First of all, 
Hanford "Clean-up" is inaccurate. Hanford will never be clean. There 
isn't even a plan to really clean it up. There are no plans to "clean up" 
all of Hanford's Low-level solid and liquid waste sites. Most of those 
are located on the central plateau and will eventually represent a 
"sacrifice zone".  Currently, old waste sites along the Columbia River 
are being dug up, and the contaminated soil is being transferred to a new 
waste site for burial on the central plateau. (That's permanent burial, 
not storage). The argument over whether those sites should be dug up (The 
proper term is remediation) is clearly political. There is no health 
based reason for doing it.
On the other hand, there are some dangerous things at Hanford that have 
to be dealt with, and these are the expensive things. Old decaying spent 
fuel is stored along the River. It has to be cleaned, encapsulated, and 
stored safely. There are 177 high level waste tanks that scare most of us 
at one time or another, with a vegetable soup mix of various chemicals 
and millions of curies of radionuclides. Sixty seven are leakers, and 
some are potentially explosive or flammable. Old buildings, including 
reactors and separations plants, are literally falling apart. One man was 
killed a few years ago when he fell through an old reactor roof. In an 
old separations plant, a stair case just broke away from the wall, 
falling into a mens restroom. The building was abandoned, but those 
stairs fell into a stall that I used to use, so I take that one a little 
personally.
The bottom line is that there's things that must be done, some things 
that should be done, some things that are optional, and some things that 
should be left alone. Which are which is a huge debate that involves lots 
of people, organization, tribes, etc. etc. There are misperceptions, 
misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and politics galore that are all 
going into the decisions about what to clean up, and how far to go. 
Science, good or bad, is just a part of it.

Allen W. Conklin
Manager, Air Emissions & Defense Waste
Division of Radiation Protection
Department of Health
7171 Cleanwater Lane, bldg 5
P.O. Box 47827
Olympia, WA  98504-7827
Work - (360) 236-3261
Fax    - (360) 236-2255
Internet :  awc0303@hub.doh.wa.gov

"He that thinketh by the INCH,
and talketh by the YARD,
needeth to be kickedeth by the FOOT."