U.S. Plutonium Facility "Might Blow Up, Or, As They Like To Call It, Experience A Criticality Event 450 Billion Gallons Of Industrial And Radiological Contaminants Dumped Directly Into Soil Threatens Water Supplies For Millions Across Pacific Northwest #Hanford

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Businessweek.com

Before entering the shuttered Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site, Jerry Long hangs his identification badge on a board outside the entrance, so rescue crews can easily figure out who’s inside, should it come to that. “This is a no-kidding hazardous category 2 nuclear facility,” says Long as he enters a brightly lit room furnished with rows of metal chairs and benches. The U.S. Department of Energy reserves that category for sites that might blow up, or, as they like to call it, experience a “criticality event.”

Rolling racks of neatly folded cotton coveralls stand against the walls. Long has a trim goatee and blue eyes that always appear narrowed in concentration, which is a good quality for a man working in a plant that contains enough residual plutonium to build 10 bombs the size of the one that destroyed Nagasaki.

He and four others carefully pull on coveralls, rubber shoe coverings, and surgical gloves. They seal the cuffs and seams with masking tape. Then they check the two cards dangling around their necks. One, which resembles a thick credit card, tallies exposure to gamma radiation. The other is called a PNAD, short for personal nuclear accident dosimeter. It records sudden bursts of neutrons, the kind of radiation released in atomic blasts and nuclear reactor meltdowns. The workers call it the “death chip.”

The Plutonium Finishing Plant at Hanford is one of the most dangerous workplaces in the world. From 1944 to 1989 it produced 74,000 tons of weapons-grade plutonium-239. Nearly two-thirds of all the plutonium in the U.S. military’s nuclear arsenal was refined here, and the plant is highly contaminated with not only plutonium but also byproducts such as hexavalent chromium, made infamous by Erin Brockovich. The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that over the years some 450 billion gallons of industrial and radiological contaminants were dumped directly into the soil. Some of it was stored, and Hanford’s aging complex of 177 underground tanks contain 53 million gallons of chemicals and radioactive liquids; 67 of the tanks have together leaked more than a million gallons. The DOE recently identified six more tanks that have sprung leaks, further threatening water supplies for millions across the Northwest.

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Via:ENENews.com