For those of you unfamiliar with Hanford(technically the Hanford Nuclear Reservation), the site is quite large. It currently occupies 586 square miles, down from a peak foot print of 670 square miles. The size reduction so far was the result of turning over a bunch of land across the Columbia which had served as 'buffer' space between the site and the surrounding area.
Making a long story short, in 1942, the scientists from The Manhattan Project identified the upcoming need for large amounts of plutonium. The search began for a large tract of land, with an adequate fresh water supply, far from any towns of more than 1000 people. The Hanford site, on the Columbia River, was identified as 'ideal in virtually all respects', except for the inconvenient fact that the town of Hanford, with some 1500 people, was smack in the middle of where they wanted to build things. This being the beginning of WWII, the Government stepped in using eminent domain, and relocated the residents of the town of Hanford, Oak Bluff, and the Wanapum Indian Tribe.
Now...don't think me TOO big of a hypocrite, but this land grab by the Feds doesn't upset me nearly as much as some of the recent eminent domain abuses. Claiming some land for a secret plutonium processing plant to win WWII AND later The Cold War is different from the Town of New London claiming some real estate for economic development.
1943 saw the undertaking of a large, ambitious construction project. By the end of the war, there would be 386 new miles of road, 160 new miles of rail road, 554 new buildings, and 3 operating reactors. The first of them, B-reactor, went critical in late September 1944, with the first plutonium being made in November of 1944. The plutonium generated at Hanford was used in the test bombs at Trinity, and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Security on site was so intense that until the bombs were dropped, fewer than 1% of workers on site knew they were working on a nuclear weapons project. General Groves, in charge of the project, noted in his memoirs that "We made certain that each member of the project thoroughly understood his part in the total effort; that, and nothing more." I can't even imagine that in this day of media openness(and that's not even counting wikileaks).
Fast forward now to the Cold War. At one point in the 1960's, there were 9 reactors and 5 separate processing plants operating on site. One unfortunate by product of all the processing was waste...both solid an liquid. Processing plutonium into a state where you can use it to make nuclear weapons is dirty business. 64 tanks were constructed on site to hold the processed liquid waste, which is not just radioactive, but contains all kinds of scary, hazardous chemicals and heavy metals. 64 tanks capable of holding 53 MILLION gallons of waste.
Well, it being the 60's, the goal was much more focused on winning the Cold War than protecting the environment. These waste chemicals were pumped into these tanks with no real long-term plan of what to do with them. By the 60's, some of these tanks were already over 20 years old(yes, meaning now they are over 60 years old.) Most of them were already full also, meaning sometimes the older tanks MAY have been just pumped out into the desert where there contents were allowed to evaporate or drain off into the ground water table. Yup...but hey, we won the Cold War.
At some point, it was realized that MAYBE the continued integrity of these tanks could be called into question. Much money was spent to install new, shiny double shell tanks to hold the liquid waste until something more permanent could be done with it, and the process was begun to transfer some of this scary liquid waste into it's new shiny tanks.
About here is where I come into the picture. This liquid transfer is still in progress. It's not a fast process, because after sitting in tanks for 40-50 years, not all the liquid waste is what you would call liquid anymore. The pumps originally meant to pump it aren't up to the task anymore. To get everything out of some of the tanks, you need to cut a hole in the top of the tank and lower a new fancy pump into the tank. That's not a smooth operation, but it is moving forward. Your tax money IS being wisely spent, and currently the Hanford operation is the largest environmental cleanup project IN THE WORLD.
I work in the tank farms, responsible for maintaining the ventilation and other support equipment on the site. During the three months I have been on site, that is what I have seen. Other contractors are responsible for cocooning the old reactors, and digging up the pits, where they used to just back up dump trucks and dump barrels and boxes of stuff in the desert. It wasn't until today that I go to go put my eyes on some of the other things that used to happen there. I got to go out and drive by Hanford
I mean, just saying 586 square miles sounds big. But...realize it is one-third the size of the State of Rhode Island. It takes over an hour to drive north to south through the site at 70MPH. There are several herds of elk, and lots of mule deer on site. I have seen pictures taken of them...there are some really nice trophy's running around that no one will ever get a chance to shoot. It was an eye opening day today. There is some really neat history out there. Not everything is being torn down. B-Reactor has been successfully wrapped up, and is being preserved as a museum, and every few months, they have guided tours of the site.
And hey...in the end, we won WWII and Ronnie won us the Cold War, so really, what is 25 Million Cubic feet of solid radioactive waste compared to that.
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