Most hazardous material on planet leaking at U.S. nuclear site, worker brought to tears over leaking

Hanford worker's struggle to 'do the right thing'
Source: KING 5
Author: SUSANNAH FRAME
Date: April 25, 2013

TV: Most hazardous material on planet leaking at U.S. nuclear site — Would contaminate our food chain for hundreds of years to come if it reaches Columbia River (VIDEO)

April 25, 2013 at 11:05 PM

Reporter: We’ve heard about other leaking tanks, so why is this one so important? This tank is holding waste that is so toxic that if it were to eat through its outer shell and reach the nearby the Columbia River it would contaminate irrigation water, crops, salmon, our food chain — not for months, but for hundreds of years to come. […]

Underfoot, the most hazardous material on earth is brewing inside a million gallon double shell tank.

Hanford Worker: This tank is holding the nastiest of nastiest stuff at Hanford.

www.king5.com...

enenews.com...

ETA: Apologies to the OP I understand now it IS leaking.

Originally posted by Todzer
Is it leaking? Or are you going for a sensational title?

I only repost what they post ..

Read and watch first ..

reply to post by Todzer

Is it leaking? Or are you going for a sensational title?

The first links first paragraph says:

The private company that manages the radioactive waste tank farms at the Hanford Site ignored or missed numerous red flags over a 10-month period that showed a double-shell tank holding some of the worst waste was leaking.

Nope, it's not sensationalized.

U.S. nuclear worker brought to tears over leaking waste — “I was ready to sell everything and move to the woods” (VIDEO)
Source: KING 5
Author: SUSANNAH FRAME
Date: April 25, 2013

The private company that manages the radioactive waste tank farms at the Hanford Site ignored or missed numerous red flags over a 10-month period that showed a double-shell tank holding some of the worst waste was leaking.

Over much of that time, one Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) employee — Mike Geffre — continued to urge his superiors to take some sort of action. [...]

“It bugged me to the point I was ready to sell everything and move to the woods, go to the mountains where I didn’t have to hear about it, read about it. I didn’t want to hear about Hanford. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore,” said Geffre.

Through tears, Geffre struggled to express how distraught he’d become. [...]

“I kept the faith that they would do the right thing. I believed in my company that they would do what was right. That’s why the stress came into play. I kept trusting them, and when nothing happened I really struggled,” said Geffre. [...]

enenews.com...

www.king5.com...

Has it leaked through both shells?
What harm can the fumes do to the surrounding population?
Where is it headed?

reply to post by lewman


I think that it's leaked through both shells.

* October 10, 2011: WRPS employee Mike Geffre and a colleague check the ENRAF to see if it is malfunctioning. It is found to be in working order. The employees observe what looked like dried up waste on the equipment and they record an unexpected reading of contamination from it.

Between this, Fukishima and the Corexit -- I'm still waiting for my mutant super powers. Sadly, I think it will just cause earlier death instead.

www.king5.com...

The blue link, found in the original articles last paragraph, leads to the above article. It's the update to the story. The following quote is found there.

In February, Islee declared a "zero tolerance policy" for leaking radioactive waste at Hanford after it was revealed that multiple tanks in a different part of the site were leaking.

It's multiple leaking tanks, as if one was not bad enough already

A more informative article can be found at Forbes.com.


www.forbes.com...

The level inside tank T-111 has been dropping by 150-300 gallons per year, DOE revealed last week.

From EPA and DOE documents, we know Tank-111 is likely to contain, in addition to uranium and plutonium, traces of the following radionuclides from these processes:
•Cesium-137, half-life about 30 years, collects in the soft tissues of the body, and according to EPA, “exposure to radiation from cesium-137 results in increased risk of cancer. Everyone is exposed to very small amounts of cesium-137 in soil and water as a result of atmospheric fallout. Exposure to waste materials, from contaminated sites, or from nuclear accidents can result in cancer risks much higher than typical environmental exposures.”
•Strontium-90, half-life 29.1 years, “is chemically similar to calcium, and tends to deposit in bone and blood-forming tissue (bone marrow). Thus, strontium-90 is referred to as a ‘bone seeker.’ Internal exposure to Sr-90 is linked to bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissue near the bone, and leukemia.
•Technetium-99, half-life 212,000 years. EPA: “Once in the human body, Tc-99 concentrates in the thyroid gland and the gastrointestinal tract. The body, however, excretes half of the ingested Tc-99 within 60 hours. It continues to excrete half of the remaining Tc-99 every 60 hours that follow. After 120 hours, only one-fourth of the ingested Tc-99 remains in the body. Nearly all of ingested technetium will be excreted from the body within a month.
• Nickel-59, half-life 760,000 years, and Nickel-63, half-life 100 years, are hazardous if inhaled, according to Idaho National Laboratory: “The major radiological concern with these two nuclides is related to limiting the exposure to people who are decommissioning and dismantling reactors, primarily for reactors in service for more than 30 years.”
•Americium-241, half-life 432 years. According to the American Library of Medicine, “in the nuclear fuel cycle the transuranic radionuclides plutonium-239, americium-241 and neptunium-237 would probably present the most serious hazard to human health if released into the environment. The principal late effects of all three radionuclides are the induction of cancers of bone, lung or liver.”

All I can say after reading all the links provided is this is sickening beyond belief.
A murderer is a murderer so why do some get condemned to death for one single killing but others skip free no matter the death toll?.

S&F to the OP for a real eye popper of a thread.

Regards, Iwinder

kind of spooky considering this is in my back yard....
i'll be keeping a close eye on this thread and doing more research.

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
Between this, Fukishima and the Corexit -- I'm still waiting for my mutant super powers. Sadly, I think it will just cause earlier death instead.

As these radioactive and toxic chemicals spew into our environment, we're bound to see a steady(possibly drastic), increase in cancers and autoimmune diseases.

It's truly sickening.

Makes me wonder what's worse...

Seeing the emergence of disease and death that will inevitably be related to these toxic elements we insist on pumping into our world...
OR
Seeing the planet laid to waste by nuclear war....

Either way, seems we've done ourselves in with ZERO hope of turning back.

reply to post by MariaLida


This has been a HUGE issue for some time now up here. Nothing has been done, TPTB just keep beating around the bush, and things have gotten to a breaking point. It's been in the news a lot more as of late, thanks to the internet and the fact that hiding these kinds of things is getting harder and harder to do.


Nuclear power if something that humans have no idea how to fully control, and thus should be outlawed. People have proven time and again that they have no idea how to dispose of the waste, let alone maintain these types of power plants. It's laughable that they keep trying, failing, and putting EVERYONE at risk.

Originally posted by MmmPie
reply to post by MariaLida

 

Nuclear power if something that humans have no idea how to fully control, and thus should be outlawed. People have proven time and again that they have no idea how to dispose of the waste, let alone maintain these types of power plants. It's laughable that they keep trying, failing, and putting EVERYONE at risk.

Definitely have to disagree with your last sentence.
This is Anything but 'laughable'.
You probably didn't mean any offense by the term.

Rest assured- no one will be laughing when we have no choice but to eat and drink food contaminated with radioactive material.

When that time comes... God forbid

Oh great. I fish the Columbia, as do most of my friends and family. If we cannot figure out a way to properly dispose of materials and substances used in these plants, they should not exist.

Their are 104 reactors in the US. Built basically by the lowest bidder, all are at or passed their due dates. This is an unfortunate reality for preppers, survivalists, and just plain everyone who thinks they will survive a societal meltdown, or modern American civil war.
HELL, its bad news for everyone

reply to post by MariaLida


This nuclear damage to our environment is intolerable, there should have been a zero tolerance put in place before the damage, instead of after.

If they don't decide to get rid of nuclear power, all together, then I wish science would come up with something that would feed off of it, and then just release back into the environment beneficial ingredients. You know sort of like how plants and animals have been able to co-exist for so long. oh boy, I should have been a sci-fi writer, but seriously though, this is some scary news

Can we just fling these things into the sun or something? How are we an "advanced" civilization? This is ridiculous. I don't know what to say anymore. I think I'm ready for that pole shift now. We are killing this planet, it's about time She cleanse herself of most of us so we can begin a new. Try again.

And taking care of this poison was privatized? To some profit making company? Of course it won't happen because human values are turned on their head, but everyone involved - company admins, workers, the guy who hired the company with no oversight, should be given life sentences and locked into the same type of prison the Boston bomber is looking at for the rest of their lives.