HANFORD EMERGENCY SPECIAL: Tunnel Collapse, Site Lockdown, Radiation Spike, Health Protection – Nuclear Hotseat #307

LISTEN NOW: HANFORD EMERGENCY SPECIAL: Tunnel Collapse, Site Lockdown, Radiation Spike, Health Protection – Nuclear Hotseat #307

HANFORD EMERGENCY SPECIAL – Interviews:

• Bob Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he is currently focused on nuclear disarmament, environmental and energy policies.
• Julie Wert, researcher and member, Radiation Watch, on radiation spike recorded at Hanford on Monday, May 8.
• Chuck Johnson, Nuclear Power Task Force Director for the Oregon/Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Mimi German, No Nukes NW and Radcast.org, the citizen radiation monitoring network.
• Kimberly Roberson, certified nutrition educator and founder of Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN)
• Radiation Awareness Protection Talk – for more information on how to protect your health and the health of your loved ones from nuclear radiation.

Links to Nuclear Hotseat Hanford interviews of interest:

• Susannah Frame, KING 5 news, Seattle – dedicated investigative reporter assigned to Hanford site, interviewed on Nuclear Hotseat #109, July 16, 2013

Ace investigative reporter Susannah Frame, mid-reporting on Hanford Emergency

• Chuck Johnson interview on Nuclear Hotseat #195, March 27, 2015
• Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge – Nuclear Hotseat #293, January 31, 2016

LISTEN NOW: HANFORD EMERGENCY SPECIAL: Tunnel Collapse, Site Lockdown, Radiation Spike, Health Protection – Nuclear Hotseat #307

EMERGENCY AT HANFORD | Beyond Nuclear press statement on #Hanford tunnel collapse onto train cars storing #radioactive waste. #nuclear http://bit.ly/2qnVJfw (PDF) | NEWS LINKS

PDF OF THIS PRESS RELEASE

NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR
For immediate release
Contact: Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Beyond Nuclear, 240-462-3216; Paul Gunter, Director, Reactor Oversight Project, Beyond Nuclear 301-523-0201

Another radioactive waste accident, this time at Hanford, shows nuclear dump sites are not under control

TAKOMA PARK, MD, May 9, 2017 -- A tunnel at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State collapsed today on top of railcars stored there that contain “mixed” radioactive waste, an accident that local watchdog group, Hanford Challenge, describes as a “crisis.”
The tunnel is located next to the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility, also known as PUREX, and contains substances classified as “dangerous waste.” The collapse prompted an initial evacuation of workers in the area that then spread to a “take cover” order for the entire site.

The already embattled Hanford site was originally part of the Manhattan Project, and a major supplier of military plutonium. It houses 177 storage tanks containing liquid radioactive sludges, some of which have been leaking radioactive effluent that could eventually threaten the Columbia River. Cleanup at the site did not begin until 1989. The Hanford tunnel collapse may have been caused by soil subsidence due to vibrations from nearby road works.

"The current unfolding crisis at Hanford, the bursting barrel at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico in 2014, and the exploding radioactive waste dump in Beatty, Nevada in 2015, show that radioactive waste management is out of control," said Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear.

”That’s why the Yucca Mountain dump in Nevada, the Canadian dump targeted at the Great Lakes shore, and the parking lot dumps in Texas and New Mexico must be blocked, to prevent future disasters," Kamps added.

WIPP, a radioactive waste repository mainly for military waste and situated near Carlsbad, NM, suffered an accident on February 14, 2014. The explosion there released radioactivity that exposed workers who were stationed above ground at the time and forced an almost three-year shutdown of the site. The disaster cost $2 billion and counting. As at Hanford, a relatively minor event — the use of the wrong kitty litter for cleanup — was blamed for the WIPP accident, prompting serious questions about competence and safeguards at such critically dangerous sites.

A leak in a massive nuclear waste storage tank at Hanford in April 2016 was described as "catastrophic" by a former tank farm worker there, even as the U.S. Department of Energy tried to downplay the problem.

Most commercial radioactive waste is currently stored at reactor sites around the country. However, military radioactive waste has continued to pose an on-going storage nightmare. Beyond Nuclear advocates for commercial reactor waste to be stored on-site but in facilities known as Hardened On-Site Storage, or HOSS, and not in the risky pools and inadequate waste casks, as is the current practice.

-30-

Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. The Beyond Nuclear team works with diverse partners and allies to provide the public, government officials, and the media with the critical information necessary to move humanity toward a world beyond nuclear. Beyond Nuclear: 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400, Takoma Park, MD 20912. Info@beyondnuclear.org. www.beyondnuclear.org. 

PDF OF THIS PRESS RELEASE

NEWS ARTICLES:

What we know about the Hanford nuclear emergency

ABC News-1 hour ago

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation site in Washington state went into immediate lockdown mode Tuesday after an 8:26 a.m. alert revealed that a tunnel used to ...

Emergency work starts to fill hole in radioactive waste tunnel at ...
Yakima Herald-Republic-3 hours ago

The Latest: White House says no emergency at nuclear site
Lincoln Journal Star-1 hour ago

No radiation reports after tunnel collapse at Hanford nuclear site
WGNO-1 hour ago

Dept. of Energy Reports No Contamination Release in Tunnel ...
KPQ-5 hours ago

Press Release for Oct 27 2016 No Nukes Bailout Action

Stop the Cuomo Tax is a grassroots campaign led by Food & Water Watch and the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). For Immediate Release:October 27, 2016 Media Contact: Mark Dunlea (518) 860-3725 dunleamark@aol.com More than 100 Groups Join Growing Campaign to Stop the Cuomo Tax; 25,000+ New Yorkers Sign Up to Oppose Cuomo Tax of Nearly $8 Billion in Increased Utility Rates During Statewide Day of Action, New Yorkers Reject Cuomo’s Billions for Planned Nuclear Power Bailout (view videos on Explore WESPAC) White Plains – A statewide campaign of over 100 organizations today urged Governor Cuomo to pull the plug on his plan to spend billions to bail out aging, unsafe upstate nuclear power plants. At rallies across the state, advocates and consumers mobilized against Governor Cuomo’s costly and increasingly unpopular nuclear bailout plan. They called on Cuomo to abandon his controversial and misguided plan to tax New Yorkers to pay nearly $8 billion to bail out a wealthy Chicago-based corporation that runs several failing nuclear power plants in the state. The direct hit to residential consumers alone will be huge. Con Edison customers’ electric bills alone go up by more than $700 million dollars. They already pay some of the highest electricity rates in the nation. Long Island customers’ bills will increase by $500 million and Niagara Mohawk bills by $465 million. To dramatize their message, supporters of the Stop the Cuomo Tax campaign delivered an oversized rejected utility bill to the Governor’s office in New York City, and held similar events in Albany, Long Island, Poughkeepsie and White Plains. Cuomo has directed the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) to insert into New York’s “Clean Energy Standard” a surcharge on utility bills designed to bail out failing nuclear power plants. The Cuomo Tax has nothing to do with clean energy. Instead, it will raise billions to prop up and subsidize three upstate nuclear plants – FitzPatrick, Ginna and Nine Mile Point – that are among the oldest plants still operating in the United States. Under the Cuomo Tax, regular New Yorkers will pay more for their utility bills over the next 12 years – from 2017 to 2029 – to bail out failing nuclear plants that should be replaced by energy efficiency and truly clean renewable energy. These aging and dangerous plants are losing money and their costs continue to rise the longer they stay open. Plus, more than one million New Yorkers already struggle to pay their utility bills every month. The total cost for bailing out the FitzPatrick, Ginna and Nine Mile Point nuclear plants could be nearly $8 billion, according to a new independent analysis from the Public Utility Law Project (PULP), a nonpartisan group that represents and advocates for low-income consumers in utility, telecommunications and energy-related matters. "Many low and moderate income consumers are having a hard time paying their utility bills. The last thing they need is a tax on their monthly utility bill to bail out the rich corporate owners of dirty, expensive nuclear power plants. If the Governor wants to create jobs and curb climate change, he should redirect the $7.6 billion into support for offshore wind and a major expansion of solar power," said Mark Dunlea of the Green Education and Legal Fund and 350NYC. “The campaign to Stop the Cuomo Tax grows stronger every day. Today, the people of New York sent a strong message to Governor Cuomo: don’t waste $7.6 billion of our money to prop up aging nuclear plants. It’s time for Governor Cuomo to listen to New Yorkers and invest in renewables, instead of wasting billions propping up the dirty fuels of the past,” said Greta Zarro, Organizer at Food & Water Watch “Nuclear power is a highly-polluting industrial process which produces large amounts of radioactive waste, heat, and greenhouse gases throughout its entire full fuel cycle. Characterization of nuclear as ‘zero-emission’ is, frankly, Orwellian. Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which – combined – consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gases in addition to toxic waste byproducts,” said Michel Lee, an attorney who has worked pro bono with citizen groups opposing the nuclear subsidy. “Imagine the broad benefits which would accrue if the same level of subsidies - $7.6 to $10 billion – was put to use upgrading the transmission grid or promoting green construction and technology," added Lee, who has been active with the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition. "Clearwater opposes the nuclear subsidy included in the NYS Public Service Commission's Clean Energy Standard, because nuclear power is far from clean in its mining, milling transportation, use and storage. Nuclear plants emit radioactivity into the air, water and ground through planned and unplanned releases," noted Manna Jo Greene, Environmental Director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. "This mandatory 12-year subsidy means that ratepayer dollars that should be going to scale up renewables and energy efficiency are being used to bail out aging, unprofitable and dangerous nuclear plants, which will continue to generate highly radioactive nuclear waste for which there is no safe storage." ABOUT STOP THE CUOMO TAX Stop the Cuomo Tax is a grassroots campaign led by Food & Water Watch and the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). To learn more, please visit www.StopTheCuomoTax.org.


via C.A.N. Coalition Against Nukes