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Comment on Major Hanford Cleanup Decision
In May 2017, Hanford made national news when a tunnel containing highly radioactive waste partially collapsed, triggering a shelter-in-place order for nearby workers and prompting widespread concerns about Hanford’s aging nuclear infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Energy (Energy) filled the tunnel with grout, a form of cement. Now, Energy seeks to fill a second, larger tunnel with grout. if left in place, the pollution in the tunnels—known as the PUREX tunnels—could pose long-term risks to soils, groundwater, and the Columbia River.
Join Columbia Riverkeeper in urging Energy to clean up Hanford’s PUREX Tunnels.
The PUREX Facility processed roughly half of the plutonium in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, and the PUREX Tunnels are filled with highly contaminated derelict or failed equipment from inside this extremely radioactive plant.
Check out Riverkeeper’s Fact Sheet about the PUREX Tunnels to learn more.
The PUREX Tunnels highlight one of Hanford’s biggest challenges: Hanford’s aging infrastructure is failing, but it still contains very long-lived radioactive and toxic pollution, such as Plutonium, Iodine-129, and Chromium. Over thousands of years, this pollution threatens to leach into Hanford’s soil, groundwater, and the Columbia River.
This map from Energy’s 2016 Hanford Site Environmental Report shows a plume of radioactive Tritium originating near the PUREX facility reaching the Columbia River, just upstream from the Tri-Cities. (Energy depicts the Tritium plume in pastel blue.) Take note: a large plume of Iodine-129 is also approaching the Columbia River.
