Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Increased Leakage From Huge Tank of Radioactive Waste At Hanford Sets Off Alarms

Tobin Fricke
/
Wikimedia

An apparent surge in leakage from a huge tank of radioactive waste set off alarms at the Hanford nuclear site in south-central Washington. This involves an aging, double-shelled tank that contractors were slowly pumping out.

On Sunday, instruments detected a sharp rise of toxic brew in the space between the inner and outer tank walls. The Washington Department of Ecology said in a statement Monday that it has no indication radioactive waste is leaking into the environment or poses a threat to public health.

Still, Governor Jay Inslee said it's obviously unwelcome news.

"We don't want to see any leaking through any of these skins. That's why we have been insistent on the federal government accelerating this cleanup,” Inslee said. “As you know, with the aid of the (state) attorney general we are holding the federal government's feet to the fire to insist that they meet these timelines."

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the tank pumping work is currently on hold while engineers evaluate the situation and prepare a plan to drain the sludge that leaked between the two walls of the tank, formally known as AY-102.

Copyright 2016 Northwest News Network

Correspondent Tom Banse is an Olympia-based reporter with more than three decades of experience covering Washington and Oregon state government, public policy, business and breaking news stories. Most of his career was spent with public radio's Northwest News Network, but now in semi-retirement his work is appearing on other outlets.
Tom Banse
Tom Banse covers national news, business, science, public policy, Olympic sports and human interest stories from across the Northwest. He reports from well known and out–of–the–way places in the region where important, amusing, touching, or outrageous events are unfolding. Tom's stories can be found online and heard on-air during "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" on NPR stations in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.