The United States has failed to process radioactive nuclear waste | Radioactive | United States
According to the New York Times website on May 31, from 1950 to 1990, the US Department of Energy produced an average of four nuclear bombs per day, which were produced in hastily built factories with few environmental measures, leaving behind a large amount of toxic radioactive waste.
The report states that the most serious problem is undoubtedly in the Hanford factory area in Washington state. Engineers sent there to handle radioactive waste after the Cold War discovered 54 million gallons of highly radioactive sludge, which was produced during the production of plutonium in American atomic bombs, including the atomic bomb dropped in Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.
Underground storage tanks filter toxic waste into the Columbia River just 6 miles away, clean up these tanks and stabilize them in some way for permanent disposal, which is one of the most complex chemical problems encountered in history. The engineers believe that they had already solved this problem many years ago, and they developed a detailed plan to embed this silt into glass containers and then bury it deep in the desert in the mountainous areas of Nevada.
But a five story chemical treatment plant built to complete this task was halted in 2012 after spending $4 billion because engineers discovered many safety defects. The towering and empty upper structure of the factory has been sealed for 11 years, symbolizing the country's failure to decisively address the deadliest legacy of the atomic age for nearly 80 years after the end of World War II.
▲ Image: At the Titan Missile Museum in Greenwale, Arizona, USA, a decommissioned intercontinental missile stands quietly in the launch well. Xinhua News Agency/Faxin
The cleaning work at Hanford factory is currently at a turning point. The US Department of Energy has been conducting closed door negotiations with Washington state government officials and the US Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to modify the plan. But many people are concerned that the most likely compromise plan that may be announced in the coming months will put the speed and quality of the cleanup work at risk.
According to some sources familiar with the negotiation process, the government seems to be seriously considering whether it is necessary to permanently bury thousands of gallons of radioactive waste in shallow underground storage tanks in Hanford. The government wants to protect the radioactive waste that is not in sealed glass tanks, but in boxes poured with concrete grout. These boxes designed to control toxic waste will almost certainly begin to decay thousands of years before the toxic waste decays.
The factories in South Carolina, Washington, Ohio, and Idaho that helped manufacture over 60000 atomic bombs have a large amount of radioactive waste, which will continue to radiate for thousands of years. Unlike nuclear power plants, the waste from nuclear power plants is composed of dry uranium particles, which are locked in metal tubes, while nuclear weapon production plants process millions of gallons of peanut butter like radioactive sludge and store it in old underground storage tanks.
There are still 2 million pounds of mercury in the soil and water of eastern Tennessee. Radioactive columnar lava flows are contaminating the Greater Miami River aquifer near Cincinnati.
In one location after another, the solution boils down to one option: either carry out costly and decades long cleanups, or take faster action to keep a large amount of radioactive waste in place.
Hanford is located in the shrubby dry grassland desert area of central southern Washington, covering an area of approximately 580 square miles. It is the most polluted and heavily polluted of all weapons production sites - too polluted to be restored for public use. But considering the risk of radioactive contamination in the Columbia River, this issue is urgent.
The search for a solution has been dragging on for so long, so even if the solution does not meet past expectations, the state government must ensure that all past massive expenditures produce some results. This may indicate that the state government has made long-term commitments to nearby residents who suffer from thyroid, reproductive, and neurological tumors, which researchers believe are related to past exposure to plutonium. The government has promised to adhere to the highest possible cleaning standards.
Gary Brenson, the engineering director who used to work at the waste treatment plant at the Department of Energy, said that the cleanup work has failed.
