They discovered of a 3-foot-long piece of radioactive material between the inner and outer steel walls of one of the storage tanks. . . putting the idea that double-wall tanks were fool proof to rest.
In Washington state the nuke waste repository clean-up at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation hasn’t gone as planned from the get go.
Here’s the newest incident report:
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/site/?pageid=event_desc&edis_id=HZ-20120822-36284-USA
” . . . plant engineers have been gathering waste stored in the facility’s 149 aging, leaky single-wall storage tanks and redepositing them in the double0-shell tanks for safekeeping. Over the years, more than 1 million gallons of waste has leaked out of 67 single-wall tanks into the surrounding soil. . . “
More from enviro group Hanford Challenge :
“. . . At Hanford, most of the nation’s low level and transuranic (containing plutonium) wastes have been disposed of in hastily built and poorly designed trenches and ditches, many of which are being dug up for more proper disposal. . . “
