Sprol

In the mid nineteen eighties I found my self visiting a lovely little town in Eastern Washington called Pasco. Part of the “Tri Cities” which includes Richland and Kennewick, the town of Pasco seemed idyllic. Quiet, clean, plenty of parks, inexpensive housing… I liked it.

Well, I liked it except for the 586-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation located on the outskirts of town. Yeah, that’s right — not a nuclear plant — a nuclear RESERVATION.

You see, it seems that after supplying plutonium for America’s war effort in World War Two, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation kept expanding until it had, by the time I arrived, not three, not five, but a full NINE reactors processing nuclear material and as a result had no small waste storage disposal issues.

This is where plutonium comes from.

You would think that this would send people running for the hills or at least to a safer part of the state, such as the base of Mount St. Helens, but the attitude of the town, at least during the time I was there, was mixed.

A large number of people I talked to really liked the plants. After all, it was a company town and the company was cooking, humming, irradiating, all that. Unemployment was low, company benefits were high and people seemed content with making the simple trade. Quality of life, in exchange for length of life.

I’ll give you an example, I’m sitting in the hotel bar and a sexy, attractive woman sits down next to me and puts three packs of Camel non-filters next to the ashtray. I said, ”Wow, those are a lot of cigarettes,” and she replied, “I like to see what I’m going to smoke in a night.”

I asked her if she worried about getting cancer and she looked me in the eye and said, “I work in the plant. What the fuck is the difference?” I bought her a double. And no, before you think that I brought her upstairs, I did the math, and figured that sleeping with her would be like placing my manhood in the microwave.

True story. Except for the part about me doing math. And the part about her being sexy and attractive. But back to the macro.

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation represents a major clean up problem. According to the web site of Washington Senator Patty Murray there are 50 million gallons of nuclear waste material sitting in 177 underground tanks all way past their intended life span. And, just because it can, the waste has entered the water table and is moving toward the Columbia River.

Fifty MILLION gallons? That’s right. But it used to be much, much worse.

There were five radionuclides that contributed the most to radiation dose from the river pathway (dose is the amount of radiation absorbed by a person’s body). The five radionuclides were phosphorus-32, zinc-65, arsenic-76, neptunium-239 and sodium-24. The Dose Reconstruction Project estimated that these radionuclides accounted for more than 94 percent of the potential radiation dose from the river pathway. There were many other radioactive materials released into the river as well.

The nuclear fuel consisted of fuel “elements” which were less than two feet long and encased in metal. There were thousands of fuel elements in each reactor. The increase in the reactor power levels put more stress on the fuel elements. Under this stress, the metal covering could split and allow small chunks of the radioactive fuel to be flushed into the river with the cooling water. The largest chunk weighed more than a pound. There were nearly 2,000 fuel element failures during the operation of the eight original plutonium production reactors.

Washington State Department of Health

That’s right, raw chunks of fuel rods discharged into the river, from 1944 through 1971. Twenty-seven years of 200 degree water fresh from the overloaded reactor cores.

The cores were overloaded because Hanford “increased the power levels of all eight reactors to produce more plutonium for the country’s nuclear arsenal. As a result, more radioactivity was discharged into the Columbia,” according to the Hanford Health Information Network. They were essentially running the reactors with the volume cranked up to eleven. Running them at warp nine.

The radiation in the Columbia also reached the Pacific Ocean, contaminating shellfish along the Washington and Oregon coasts. The levels of zinc-65 in the oysters of Willapa Bay on the Washington coast were monitored beginning in 1959. According to a 1959 Hanford document, the levels of zinc-65 in Pacific oysters were more than 300 times higher than in Japanese or Atlantic coast oysters.

Some people have recalled that in the 1950s and 1960s, they preferred swimming near Hanford because the water felt warmer there than further downstream.
Washington State Department of Health

They are working on the problems, of course. In May of 1989 the EPA, The state, and the department of energy entered into a Tri-Party Agreement to clean the area up.

They are currently constructing a plant, due to open in 2007, that will convert the waste into glass for easier storage. Not only do I not know or understand how this works but I can’t possibly begin to fathom what one does with highly radioactive glass – sell it to the bottlers of Jolt Cola? A new kind of solar panel for places that don’t get sun? Happy meals?

Actually, there have been recent cuts in the budget to clean up this mess. Apparently the money is needed to help clean up the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Senators Murray and Cantwell recently issued a joint statement that said among other things,

“For the past five years there has been an unprecedented attack on our nation’s ability to cleanup nuclear waste. Today we know why. The Administration has officially labeled these cleanup efforts as ‘lower-priority federal programs.’

There is no more important priority for the federal government than protecting the health and well-being of all Americans. The cleanup of nuclear waste at Hanford and other sites across the country is a signal about how our nation treats the communities that have sacrificed to protect all of us.

There is nothing fiscally responsible about the Administration’s efforts to rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul attempts at Katrina recovery. If the President were serious about fiscal responsibility he would rethink a short-sighted and dangerous tax cut policy. Denying funding to a national priority like Hanford cleanup, will only lead to increased costs in the long run.” source

It was 11 AM the next day. I was in my hotel room on the fourth floor overlooking the entire area. It was a lovely day and I was shaking off the cobwebs of the night before when I heard the siren. Loud. One of those 40’s air raid ones.

My first instinct is to “Duck and Cover” but then I remember Glasnost and rule it out. Probably only a test. Then the screaming starts. Children screaming at the top of their lungs. Running. Screaming. True.

My blood ran cold. I could not believe that this is how I was going to die. Then it sort of got quieter. I could still hear the kids but now they sounded happy. I went out on the terrace and there, across the street, was an elementary school. It was recess.

Kids.

I lit up a cigarette, picked up the phone and called John Hancock about getting some term life.