Good to know Washington takes cleanup of radioactive waste seriously. Look how quickly they plan to finish the job:
The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The site continued to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal through the Cold War.Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Cleanup is expected to top $50 billion and continue through 2035.
hey, there are wars to fund, and tax breaks to give to industry, right?
Print Story: Energy Department fined $1 million:
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday fined the federal Energy Department $1.1 million over violations of an agreement to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation, the nation's most polluted nuclear site.The fine involved operations at a landfill that is the primary repository for contaminated soils, debris and other hazardous and radioactive waste from cleanup operations across the site.
After first shutting down operations upon discovery of the failures, the EPA has permitted the landfill to resume operations under strict oversight.
The EPA pointed out problems in a letter to the Energy Department on Tuesday, saying that workers did not perform weekly inspections that would reduce the risk of leaks in landfill liners and that operations did not comply with tests on compacted waste for structural stability.
So in other words, compliance was voluntary, and thus non-existant. Sounds familiar.
More on the Hanford site
(h/t)
(I didn't realize I used this exact title before. Doh!
Technorati Tags: energy, environment, EPA, pollution
