Tribes: Nuclear waste can't be stored at Hanford

Tribes: Nuclear waste can't be stored at Hanford
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100715/ap_on_re_us/us_hanford_yucca_mountain_2



By SHANNON DININNY, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 14, 2010




RICHLAND, Wash. — The Hanford nuclear reservation is already the most contaminated 

U.S. nuclear site, and federal efforts to find a permanent place for all of the nation's 

radioactive waste shouldn't impede plans to clean it up, people from various backgrounds 

told a federal commission Wednesday.




The [commission] panel, appointed by President Barack Obama to examine U.S. nuclear 

waste policies, toured the Hanford site, [and] heard from local advocacy groups and 

Northwest American Indian tribes about the need for cleanup.




The visit to south-central Washington was one of several planned around the country by 

the 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. The group is 

charged with reviewing U.S. treatment, transportation and disposal of radioactive waste.




Obama called for creation of the commission following his decision not to proceed with 

[the] Yucca Mountain [project], an underground waste repository proposed 90 miles 

northwest of Las Vegas. Highly radioactive waste from Hanford, which was created in 

the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan project to build the atomic bomb, has 

long been intended for such a repository [along with high-level radioactive waste from

commercial nuclear power reactors.]




[At Hanford,] Commission members visited a field of underground tanks holding millions 

of gallons of highly radioactive [liquid] waste and viewed construction of a massive waste 

treatment plant. 




They also walked a catwalk over a pool containing radioactive elements cesium and 

strontium, glowing pale blue in the building's darkness, intended for [eventual] disposal 

in a repository.




A public meeting followed, where members of the Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce and 

Wanapum tribes welcomed the commission to their homelands but stressed the need 

to remove waste from Hanford. The tribes retain treaty rights to fish, hunt and gather 

roots there.




Hanford lands have always been important to the Nez Perce culturally and ceremonially, 

[and the tribe's rights to the land are enshrined in treaties], but those treaties have not 

always been honored, said Brooklyn Baptiste, the tribe's vice chairman. The commission 

has an opportunity to change that, he said.




"In less than one generation, Hanford has become so contaminated that my people 

will be living with the contaminated consequences for the next 10,000 years or longer," 

said Stuart Harris, director of the Department of Science and Engineering for the 

Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla in Oregon.




For more than 25 years, the Energy Department has pursued plans to bury at least 

77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel in Yucca Mountain. Estimates 

have projected the total cost at more than $90 billion, with $10 billion spent to date.




Opponents have raised concerns about contamination, and Obama made a campaign 

promise to kill the project, which was [also] a longtime goal for the Nevada congressional 

delegation and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.




Obama in January appointed former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana and 

former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to head a commission to 

recommend alternatives.




Scowcroft stressed that the commission's mission is to identify a disposal path for 

radioactive waste, not site a repository.




A repository will "absolutely" be necessary, particularly for defense waste like that found 

at Hanford, said Ken Niles of the Oregon Department of Energy. But Oregon remains 

focused on ensuring that the waste already at Hanford is stabilized, he said.




"The Hanford site is not an appropriate location to take on any additional waste storage, 

waste disposal or waste generation missions," Niles said. "We're more than 20 years 

into a cleanup that now looks like its going to stretch 65 or 70 years before it's all 

complete."




Commission members also visited Columbia Generating Station, the Northwest's only 

commercial nuclear power plant, which is operated by the public power consortium 

Energy Northwest.




Northwest ratepayers have already paid $290 million into a national fund to build and 

operate [a nuclear waste] repository since the plant began commercial operation in 

1984. Without a repository to store the waste, Energy Northwest has instead installed 

27 [dry storage] canisters to hold used fuel bundles.




Washington state and South Carolina are suing to prevent the Yucca Mountain project 

from being abandoned. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission legal panel ruled last month 

that the Energy Department doesn't have the authority to kill the [Yucca Mountain] 

project started by Congress, but Nevada state and Energy Department officials have 

said they will appeal [that ruling].




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