Free Republic

Donald Trump’s first budget recommendations help pay for a bigger military with lower expenditures for other promised programs. His recommendations for infrastructure disappointed local officials across the nation, and his plan to revive Nevada’s Yucca Mountain also received limited funds. Trump’s plan calls for $1.5 trillion in infrastructure projects, with just $200 billion supplied by the federal government. It was widely assumed, including in conservative circles, that the program would force local governments to raise taxes. In the Unification Church publication Washington Times, economist Peter Morici wrote, President Trump’s infrastructure plan puts a heavy burden on the states and will...

Some time in 1956 and 1957, (PUREX), Sixty eight railroad flat cars, loaded with un contained processing plant equipment and refuse, laden with, extremely high levels of Plutonium contamination were rolled into temporary earth covered storage. Sometime in late June or early May, thousands of cubic feet of this storage collapsed, squirting some of the worlds most contaminated “air” into the Colombia basin. Technicians doing radiation monitoring Tuesday morning observed, “some readings were much higher than expected, they began checking around for the cause and found an anomaly. Nearly 4,800 workers at the nuclear waste site were ordered to take...

Fifty eight years back, railcar loads of extremely hazardous equipment laden with finely divided particulate Plutonium dust were shoved by remote-control, into a 360' 10’ X 10’ repository, made of thick, treated wood beams. The box was later covered; top and sides with about ten feet of dirt. When it filled up, an additional an 1,700 feet of “concrete reinforced with metal” housing was added and “Pretty much” loaded. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article149475209.html#emlnl=Breaking_News_Alerts

BREAKING NEWS WASHINGTON STATE TUNNEL COLLAPSE TRIGGERS ALERT AT PLUTONIUM PLANT Hundreds of workers took cover after a tunnel in a Washington plutonium finishing plant collapsed Tuesday morning. The tunnel at the Hanford plant near Richland was full of contaminated particles, including radioactive trains that transport fuel rods, KING5 reported.

Hundreds of workers were in "take cover" position after a tunnel in a plutonium finishing plant collapsed in Hanford early Tuesday morning. The tunnel was full of highly contaminated materials such as hot radioactive trains that transport fuel rods.

One of the nuclear reactors at Hanford has had a scram. That means the cooling failed and the reactor automatically shut down. The news reports say they are checking it out and will restart when it's safe.

RICHLAND – The Environmental Protection Agency says the uncontrolled spread of small amounts of radioactive waste at Hanford after a Nov. 17 windstorm is alarming. The winds pushed specks of contamination beyond Route 4, the public highway from Richland out to the Wye Barricade entrance to Hanford. The Tri-City Herald reports that tests found no contamination on the public highway. And the Department of Energy concluded that workers and the public are not at risk of exposure. But the EPA in a letter says the uncontrolled spread of contamination “is a matter that is alarming to EPA and requires further...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- The nation's most polluted nuclear weapons production site is now its newest national park. Thousands of people are expected next year to tour the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, home of the world's first full-sized nuclear reactor, near Richland, about 200 miles east of Seattle in south-central Washington. They won't be allowed anywhere near the nation's largest collection of toxic radioactive waste.

The Pentagon has responded to a globally-released ‘Kill List’, asking law enforcement to give extra protection for military personnel whose personal information was released,News Channel 10 reports. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports the Pentagon spent the weekend notifying the soldiers who appeared on the list, and urged city police departments and military police to increase patrol in the neighborhoods where the targeted live. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) published the list days ago, a report that contained names, photos, and home addresses of U.S. Armed Forces personnel, causing alarm in cities potentially at high-risk....

Gannett Company - Link only

Gannett...link only.

Covering the ground with a durable plastic or asphalt barrier is one option possible to stop the spread of radioactive waste leaking from Hanford’s underground tanks, said Jane Hedges, manager of the Department of Ecology’s nuclear waste program. She spoke at a work session hearing of the Washington State Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee this morning. Two of the barriers were built earlier at Hanford to prevent rain and snowmelt from driving contamination deeper into the soil. That contamination was left from earlier tanks spills or leaks. The barriers have markedly decreased the amount of water infiltrating the ground...

Obama and the Democrats claim the environment as an issue solely their own. But are they ready to lead? The New York Times had a great article yesterday about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in my home state of Washington, detailing the facility's role in the Manhattan Project and production of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, ending World War II. Today, it's a environmental clean-up project that costs the federal government $2 billion a year. The NYT reports that the project is "thought to be the world’s largest environmental cleanup." Surely the Democratic presidential candidate has something substantive and thoughtful to...

ONE of "the most contaminated places on Earth" will only get dirtier if the US government doesn't get its act together - clean-up plans are already 19 years behind schedule and not due for completion until 2050. More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford in Washington State. Most are over 50 years old. Already 67 of the tanks have failed, leaking almost 4 million litres of waste into the ground. There are now "serious questions about the tanks' long-term viability," says a Government Accountability Office report, which strongly criticises...

RICHLAND, Wash. - 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...

Richland, Wash. -- The U.S. Energy Department evacuated some workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation Wednesday because of a suspected container leak.