Blog post by Theresa Labriola, Riverkeeper's Hanford Coordinator -
Columbia Riverkeeper and more than two dozen other organizations delivered letters to Senators Wyden, Murray and Cantwell asking the Senators to usher a new era of oversight and accountability at the most contaminated place in the Western Hemisphere: the 586-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The organizations, which ranged from public health to fishing to workers’ rights groups, called on the Senators to take a heightened role in ensuring safe, effective cleanup of toxic and radioactive pollution at Hanford, which is located along the banks of the Columbia River.
We need new oversight at Hanford. Toxic and radioactive pollution from Hanford threatens our region’s shared interest in healthy families and ensuring the Columbia River is safe for fishing and other uses. Congress can and should create an independent oversight board to ensure problems such as undetected radioactive leaks don’t become disasters, and don’t happen again. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s recent warning that hydrogen gas could build up inside Hanford tanks, leading to an explosion that would release radioactive material further highlights this need.
The signatories also asked for Congressional leadership to ensure that the Department of Energy is conveying accurate information on the status of Hanford Cleanup. The Department of Energy continues to paint a rosy picture while contamination seeps out of underground tanks, moves towards the groundwater, enters the Columbia River, and complicates cleanup.
Energy’s “2015 Vision” public relations campaign is a prime example of the agency whitewashing the continued need for cleanup. The 2015 Vision promises to reduce Hanford’s active cleanup footprint by 90 percent by 2015. By focusing on the surface operations, Energy misleads the public and fails to address the underground contamination. Too much is at stake for the nation. No one benefits from downplaying the extent of cleanup that remains. The truth is that the most difficult work lies ahead.
