A clogged pump caused an undetermined amount of highly radioactive waste to spill on the ground Thursday night and Friday morning during a transfer operation at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Kim Ballinger, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy at Hanford, said several workers were involved in the transfer but none was contaminated.
As a precaution, about 50 office workers — most of them between one to two miles from the spill site — were evacuated Friday afternoon. Environmental monitoring found the traces of radioactivity Friday morning, and about 11 a.m. the workers were told to stay inside their buildings. They were moved out of the area about 3:30 p.m.
Ballinger said a team of workers sprayed a cement-like fixative over the 8- to 15-foot-diameter spill area to keep radioactive material from being carried by the wind.
Steve Wiegman, a senior technical adviser with the Department of Energy at Hanford, said no one knows how much of the radioactive liquid spilled because it rapidly sank into the ground.
"The area is very permeable, so there's no pool of liquid," he said.
The liquid was being pumped from an old single-shell storage tank to a newer double-shelled tank as part of a tank farm cleanup by contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group Inc.
Wiegman said the situation did not meet the criteria for an emergency declaration. But the U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees Hanford, has established an event coordination team and will develop a plan to clean up the spill, he said.
source: 4aug2007
Map source: 4aug2007
Federal officials traced a spill of highly radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation last week to a water line that was never intended to handle such a hazardous brew and delayed detection for hours.
Attempts to unclog a pump plugged by nuclear waste as thick as chunky peanut butter inadvertently forced the sludge from an aging underground tank into the water line, which sprung a leak, spilling 50 to 100 gallons onto the ground, said Delmar Noyes of the U.S. Department of Energy.
"This water line was never designed to contain or have waste injected into it," he said during a telephone conference call with reporters.
It was the worst spill at Hanford in recent years as federal workers and hired contractors try to empty 149 deteriorating underground tanks filled with waste from the dawn of the nuclear age. Nearly half are suspected of leaking.
Only seven tanks have been emptied.
Review teams are trying to figure out how to clean up the spilled waste. They also want to know how the radioactive and chemical waste entered the water line, which was not double-walled such as the hoses meant to carry the material.
The line also lacked leak sensors that would have immediately alerted workers to the spill.
Instead, workers discovered the leak seven hours later, after monitors detected high levels of radiation in the area, Noyes said. Once officials realized waste had spilled, Hanford employees were told to stay inside nearby buildings.
Public notices were issued about nine hours after the spill.
No one was injured or exposed to harmful levels of radiation, and there was never any risk to the public, officials said. The small area of saturated ground was sprayed with a sealant to prevent the wind from blowing any radioactive material.
source: 4aug2007
SPOKANE, Wash. — Trying to remove radioactive sludge that is thick as peanut butter clogged a pump and led to a spill at the Hanford nuclear reservation, officials said Tuesday.
Now workers are trying to determine how to clean the worst spill that Hanford's tank farm area has had in years.
"The release to the environment of this waste material is not acceptable," Delmar Noyes, of the U.S. Department of Energy at Hanford, told reporters during a conference call.
No workers were contaminated by the radioactivity and the spill was contained within a tiny area near the waste tanks, so it posed no threat to the public, Noyes said.
But the spill, which Noyes said was the largest in the tank farm in years, illustrates the difficulties of trying to safely dispose of nuclear waste that dates back to World War II and the Manhattan Project to build nuclear weapons. Hanford covers about 560 square miles in southcentral Washington near the Tri-Cities, and contains the nation's largest collection of nuclear waste from the production of weapons.
The spill was believed to have occurred early Friday, but was not detected until about 10 a.m., some seven hours later, Hanford officials said.
A Hanford watchdog group criticized the Energy Department for what it called a slow response to the leak.
"This latest leak of deadly waste illustrates the risks we face for decades to come," said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest.
"The failure to detect the leak for hours overnight, while deadly high-level nuclear wastes apparently spilled onto the ground, raises serious questions requiring state and federal investigations," Pollet said.
The waste from the bottom of the tank is so lethal "that a cup full of waste would kill everyone in a room in a short period of time," Pollet added.
Hanford officials contend they notified regulators in an appropriate fashion after the release was discovered.
The spill occurred as an underground tank called S-102 was being slowly drained of its nuclear waste, which since 2004 has been pumped into newer, double-walled tanks that are less likely to leak.
The waste is thick, with the consistency of chunky peanut butter, and is injected with water and stirred to make it pumpable, Hanford officials said.
Early Friday, the pump became clogged. Workers reversed the pump in an effort to clear it. That reversal sent some waste from the bottom of the tank up into the hose that was feeding water into the tank, and that's the waste that leaked onto the ground, Noyes said.
The leak was estimated at between 50 and 100 gallons, although officials are not yet sure how big it was, he said.
The spill area has been capped with a material to prevent the waste from becoming airborne. A plan to safely dispose of the spill is being developed, he said.
There were no workers in the tank farm when the spill occurred, Hanford officials said.
After the spill was detected, workers in protective gear went into the tank farm to determine the extent of the radiation release, they said.
Meanwhile, workers in surrounding areas were evacuated and the pumping operation was shut down, Noyes said. Also shut down was the pumping of another nuclear waste storage tank.
Both will remain closed until it is determined that work can safely proceed, he said.
Two pumps have already been ruined on tank S-102 since the removal work started in 2004, and the clogged pump has only been operated since July 25, Hanford officials said.
The spill area has been fenced and is being monitored for radioactive release, Noyes said.
The waste removal is being conducted by private contractor CH2M Hill, which has emptied seven of the old tanks so far.
The waste in S-102 dates to the World War II effort to make plutonium, said Richard Raymond, of CH2M Hill.
"It's some of the most difficult we've had to deal with," he said.
The S-102 tank can hold 758,000 gallons, although only about 40,000 gallons remains in the tank, officials said.
source: 4aug2007
SPOKANE, Wash. — Workers are trying to determine how to clean up one of the worst radioactive waste leaks in years at the Hanford nuclear reservation, officials said.
No workers were contaminated during last week's accident and the spill was contained within a tiny area, posing no threat to the public, officials said Tuesday.
The leak was estimated at between 50 and 100 gallons, although officials are not yet sure how big it was, Delmar Noyes, of the U.S. Department of Energy, told reporters during a conference call.
The spill area has been capped to prevent the waste from becoming airborne. A plan to safely dispose of the spill is being developed.
``The release to the environment of this waste material is not acceptable,'' Noyes said.
The spill, which Noyes said was the largest in the tank farm in years, illustrates the difficulties of trying to safely dispose of nuclear waste that dates back to World War II.
The spill was believed to have occurred early Friday, but was not detected until about 10 a.m., some seven hours later, Hanford officials said.
A watchdog group criticized the Energy Department for what it called a slow response to the leak.
``The failure to detect the leak for hours overnight, while deadly high-level nuclear wastes apparently spilled onto the ground, raises serious questions requiring state and federal investigations,'' said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest.
Hanford officials contend they notified regulators in an appropriate fashion after the release was discovered.
The spill occurred as an underground tank was being slowly drained of its nuclear waste, which since 2004 has been pumped into newer, double-walled tanks that are less likely to leak.
The waste from the bottom of the tank is so lethal ``that a cup full of waste would kill everyone in a room in a short period of time,'' Pollet said.
Early Friday, the pump became clogged and workers reversed it in an effort to clear the blockage. That sent some waste from the bottom of the tank up into the hose that was feeding water into the tank, leading to the leak onto the ground, Noyes said.
Workers in surrounding areas were evacuated and the pumping operation was shut down. Also shut down was the pumping of another nuclear waste storage tank. Both will remain closed until it is determined that work can safely proceed.
Hanford covers about 560 square miles in south-central Washington, and contains the nation's largest collection of nuclear waste from the production of weapons.
source: 4aug2007
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