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Possible Radioactive Leak Investigated At Washington Nuclear Site (upi.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the going-for-Geiger-counters dept.

Authorities are investigating radioactive material found on a worker's clothing one week after a tunnel collapse at the waste nuclear waste site in the state of Washington. Around 7 p.m. Thursday, Washington River Protection Solutions, a government contractor contractor in charge of all 177 underground storage tanks at the nuclear site. detected high radiation readings on a robotic device that seven workers were pulling out of a tank. Then, contamination was also discovered on the clothing of one worker -- on one shoe, on his shirt and on his pants in the knee area.

"Radiological monitoring showed contamination on the unit that was three times the planned limit. Workers immediately stopped working and exited the area according to procedure," said Rob Roxburgh, deputy manager of WRPS Communications & Public Relations said to KING-TV. Using leak-detection instruments, WRPS said it did not find liquid escaping the tank. "Everybody was freaked, shocked, surprised," said a veteran worker, who was in direct contact with crew members. "[The contamination] was not expected. They're not supposed to find contamination in the annulus [safety perimeter] of the double shell tanks."
Washington's attorney general, urging a federal clean-up of the site, insists "This isn't the first potential leak and it won't be the last."

94 comments

  1. ...waste nuclear waste site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This report brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

    1. Re:...waste nuclear waste site by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      This report brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

      And by the Liberal Nuculer Iss-Yew Diversion Network. Hanford is a weapons facility dating to the early Cold War, when we knew little about nuclear waste storage.

    2. Re:...waste nuclear waste site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot about the contracter contracter at the waste nuclear waste site

  2. Nucular by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's pronounced nucular.

    captcha: pervert
    (seriously)

    1. Re: Nucular by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Captchas are generated by examining your browsing history.

    2. Re: Nucular by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No wonder mine's always bonersex

    3. Re:Nucular by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      According to Merriam Webster, that is a valid way to pronounce it.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  3. Relocate the Microsoft Campus to Hanford by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hanford would be a nice name for an OS.

    1. Re:Relocate the Microsoft Campus to Hanford by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sure, and take all their smelly H1B indo-chimps with it. Redmond smells like monkey ass.

    2. Re: Relocate the Microsoft Campus to Hanford by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You always say this. Its kinda working. Raising awareness. But if what? Sure. They are smelly. Not sure about indo - like Indonesian? And chimps not really.

      Slave laborers yes. Most are unqualified? Yes.

      But its the companies hiring them. So you can boycott them:

      Sandisk
      Cisco
      Brocade
      Visa
      Tesla
      Gilead

  4. I'm a downwinder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What we really need is a new general contractor who will promise to do the cleanup twice as fast at half the price. This never ending cleanup is bullshit. We do like the money hose that fires billions of dollars every year at us, though. KEEP RADIATION ALIVE!

    1. Re:I'm a downwinder by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem with the "cleanup" is that once you have "cleaned up" the radiation, where are you going to put it? In a landfill? That is just moving the problem from one place to another. A geological repository like Yucca Mountain doesn't work, because that is for small amounts of high level waste, not large amounts of low level waste like we have at Hanford.

      There really aren't any good solutions, but in politics "something must be done" so paying contractors to play environmental theater while they move stuff around in circles is about the best we can do.

    2. Re: I'm a downwinder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Find a a shallow water off-shore geologic subduction zone,drill in close to drop down point,pump in low level waste,it's not perfect,but it is probably far safer than gathering it all together on a land site and storing/processing,if it seems to work ok,for say a century,start getting rid of the realy dangerous high level crud in the same way.
      Keep fingers crossed for several thousand years until "proven" a safer system.
      Or combine two projects,ultra deep moho drilling project funded by nuclear /waste industry and govs, then use that as dump hole..

    3. Re:I'm a downwinder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It sounds like a federally supported employment opportunity for some of the more geologically stable States.

    4. Re:I'm a downwinder by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

      Didn't you watch The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret? You bottle the stuff and sell it as a power drink.

    5. Re:I'm a downwinder by skirmish666 · · Score: 1
      There's a solution that goes one step beyond paying a contractor, as per the summary: pay a

      government contractor contractor

      The only issue is that contractor contractors have been known on the odd occasion to accidentally the whole thing.

      --
      Sigger than your average
    6. Re: I'm a downwinder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mix it Up with the remains where the uranium was first dug up (of course not the most radioactive stuff) and dump it back into the mine-site and the cover with 20 meters of topsoil....

      For the most radioactive stuff we can still get energy from it so use it... There are a number of reactor designs that can take this and reduce the amount of waste, and the waste from those then only need to be stored for a few hundred years... Fairly easy to manage...

    7. Re:I'm a downwinder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be honest, the safest solution would probably be to slowly disperse it in the most distant/least traversed areas of an ocean without telling anyone, and it would just be dispersed fairly evenly into the world and the only problem would be killing a few (hundred thousand?) fish.

    8. Re: I'm a downwinder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coal is better. It seems this nuke stuff is a million times more deadly and harder to handle.

      Coal atleast can be pumped into the air and hopefully go to china for payback.

    9. Re:I'm a downwinder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Repeal the Nixon Executive Order and reprocess it.

    10. Re:I'm a downwinder by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      "once you have "cleaned up" the radiation, where are you going to put it?"

      Ideally into a MSR, where it can be burned down (or left alone for around 300 years when it should be safe enough to handle anyway)

    11. Re:I'm a downwinder by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      I believe the materials stored in liquid form are medium to high-level waste, not the low-level waste. They have all sorts at Hanford (and at Sellafield/ Seascale/ Windscale/ Calder Hall, where I was trying to get work some years ago). And part of the proposal for Yucca mountain was specifically to store higher-level material from Hanford.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    12. Re: I'm a downwinder by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Find a a shallow water off-shore geologic subduction zone

      That's a contradiction in terms. If it's subducting, then the weight of the descending oceanic slab will pull the surface of the ocean down into a trench. You're looking at drilling into 10,000ft or deeper water - doable, but not routine.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  5. I used to work at Hanford Site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and three times the planned limit is nothing. Before I quit, we had a scare where the monitors said there was a "major" problem, but it was someone that had an old smoke detector in their backpack that they brought from home that they forgot about. If a smoke detector is considered safe in your home, then having one at a radioactive dump shouldn't be considered a problem, but it was. This is just people being overly cautious.

    1. Re: I used to work at Hanford Site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      This. People on Seattle just like to whine.

    2. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      What does Hercules have to do with radiation?

    3. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Perhaps exposure to radiation is what made him so strong? Having said that there's no evidence that he was green, but then again colour film hadn't been invented then.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sure, but you don't set such limits to detect catastrophes. You set such limits to detect unforeseen circumstances that might, perhaps in rare situations, lead to catastrophe.

      A worker being exposed to harmful levels of radiation is catastrophic. A worker being exposed to a level of radiation that is medically harmless but which should not have occurred is a situation that requires investigation, because that means something about your assumptions isn't quite right. That doesn't mean you ought to panic; in any sensibly conservative procedure you have to accept that false positive concern is a routine event -- as in your story of the smoke detector.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by ArchieBunker · · Score: 2

      Agreed. Who carries around old smoke detectors? Plus you won't read any alpha rays coming from the metal can.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    6. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      David Hahn.

      You might say he lived to regret it.

    7. Re: I used to work at Hanford Site... by Jesus+H+Rolle · · Score: 0

      Having said that there's no evidence that he was green, but then again colour film hadn't been discovered then.

      Ftfy

    8. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by msauve · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Who carries around old smoke detectors?"

      Americium, Fuck Yeah!

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    9. Re: I used to work at Hanford Site... by sexconker · · Score: 1

      I get the reference.

    10. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 0

      it was someone that had an old smoke detector in their backpack that they brought from home that they forgot about.

      They brought an old smoke detector from home to their job at Hanford. Well, they "forgot" about it. Hmmm.

      1. ) Why was it in their backpack in the first place?
      2. ) They work at Hanford. They know that smoke detectors contain a very small amount of radioactive material.
      3. ) They brought it to Hanford, where radioactive material is handled, tracked, and detected.

      I'm not saying that they planned to do anything shifty, but this just doesn't sound "right".

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    11. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If you work at a site that stores and tracks nuclear waste, then you probably know that a smoke detector contains radioactive materials and so shouldn't be just thrown away. You put it in your backpack to take it somewhere to dispose of safely. You forget that you did it and go into work with that backpack. Not a particularly far-fetched set of circumstances...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    12. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But if you knew all that, then you'd not walk around work with it, you'd hand it in right at the off. Moreover, you know that fly ash has more radioactivity and falls on landfill all the time, so you'd know better than to be worried about your smoke detector THAT YOU DECIDED TO BUY IN THE FIRST PLACE. Which kind of makes you wonder why, if they were so worried about the radioactivity of the device why they bought it in the first place.

      So, yeah, it's an incredibly unlikely set of circumstances.

    13. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit.

    14. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      When Chernobyl happened the first view days it was kept s secret.
      But then research agencies all over Europe suddenly had problems.

      In my university (KIT Karlsruhe), the institute that had some radio nuclides had radiation alerts for days, until they figured there was no problem _inside_ of the institute but that people were carrying in the"radiation" with their shoes in from outside.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    15. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The OP cited radiation monitors, not Geiger counters and they do indeed detect alpha and beta. Why would you think they only use Geiger counters? That's just ignorant.

    16. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by MercTech · · Score: 1

      Someone goofed pulling an instrument package out of the methyl ethyl nastiness of the tank farms and someone is surprised?
      Why do some people want to portray usual business at a cleanup facility as some sort of world devastating crisis?

      --
      NRRPT/RCT
    17. Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      Except that they are intended to just be thrown away.

      There are no special disposal instructions for ionization smoke detectors. They may be thrown away with household trash, however your community may have a separate recycling program.

      The alpha from Am241 will not be detectable at any distance from the detector even if the metallic/ceramic enclosure is breached. The mean free path of an alpha particle in air is very small - about 5 cm.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  6. I hope the worker as good health insurance by Streetlight · · Score: 0

    The insurance should have coverage for prior conditions, not what some folks in Washington, D. C., propose that would prevent coverage for the worker in some situations.

    --
    In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    1. Re:I hope the worker as good health insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're biggest concern is health care legislation? This is contamination from a federal government funded site that helped created nuclear weapons.

      I hope he dies and many others. Maybe that would wake people up to how horrible the US government is.

    2. Re:I hope the worker as good health insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, having DNA that can mutate is a pre-existing condition!

    3. Re:I hope the worker as good health insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He has Trumpcare. They'll charge him 5 bucks for the first bullet, then 15 bucks if he doesn't die with that one.

    4. Re:I hope the worker as good health insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not what some folks in Washington, D. C., propose

      Exactly what conservatives have been saying. If socialized medicine is so great, you're state is welcome to implement it.

    5. Re: I hope the worker as good health insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could, you know, hope people care about the issue without psychopathicly hoping people die. Just sayin'...

    6. Re:I hope the worker as good health insurance by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      Three times the allowed limits. Hmmm....

      Chances of cancer from same? Zero. Three times the allowed limits (unless they've changed the limits a lot since I was paying attention 30 years ago) is less than one chest X-Ray....

      Now, if they'd sustained that level for a whole year, that might be an issue. But a one-time, short-term exposure only three times the limit? Meaningless....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    7. Re:I hope the worker as good health insurance by Mr.CRC · · Score: 0

      You have probably noticed that all news about such matters in the USA almost never contains any technical data that can be used to make an actual, informed assessment of its significance. Even worse, it is usually presented in a form such as "3 times higher than normal!!!" or some such jibberish because while meaningless without further information, a scientifically illiterate populace is easily swayed by the apparently alarming fact.

      All "news" is psyops/manipulation at this point.

    8. Re:I hope the worker as good health insurance by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      "Even worse, it is usually presented in a form such as "3 times higher than normal!!!" or some such jibberish because while meaningless without further information, a scientifically illiterate populace is easily swayed by the apparently alarming fact."

      Compounded by memories of radiation injuries to the general public which WERE caused by people playing fast and loose with (lack of) safety standards.

      Not just the radium girls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... but also ill-advised "pedoscopes" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - which were usually poorly maintained, and awareness of the radiation-induced injuries at hiroshima and nagasaki (which whilst horrific, are used to vastly overblow fear of "radiation" beyond all rational analysis - useful to discourage people from engaging in nuclear war but a handicap when trying to rationally approach risk management)

  7. Re:Hanford Needs a Congressional Investigation by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

    So it's taking all this time for nothing to progress, and you want to start a congressional investigation? How about just getting it done, which is apparently not what current government can do anymore.

    This is what happens when it's just government contractors, contractors all the way down.

  8. Re:Hanford Needs a Congressional Investigation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Trump makes it to the next presidential campaign he will be around a lot longer than two terms. American democracy has been dead for a long time and Trump is the zombie incarnation of it that America can't escape.

  9. Re:Hanford Needs a Congressional Investigation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How much is it government contractors and how much is it lawyers delaying it?

  10. rtfs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Editors, what the hell?

    "Around 7 p.m. Thursday, Washington River Protection Solutions, a government contractor contractor in charge of all 177 underground storage tanks at the nuclear site."

    How is that a complete sentence? Is a government contractor contractor a thing? What did the government contractor contractor do?

    1. Re:rtfs by PPH · · Score: 1

      Obviously gamma radiation corrupted the editor's PC memory resulting in the duplication of words and addition of spurious periods.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    2. Re:rtfs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously gamma radiation corrupted the editor's PC memory resulting in the duplication of words and addition of spurious periods.

      Incorrect, The editor is just a trump voter, no additional mutation required.

  11. LEMON PARTY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This report breought by you for by Da Goat...er, I mean...LEMON PARTY!!!!!

    1. Re: LEMON PARTY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 Insightful!

  12. No solution until Reid retires by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nevada, you have the space and the facilities. What gives?

    1. Re: No solution until Reid retires by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Harry Reid has retired, dumbass.

  13. Shut up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Were all gonna die! Children to the fallout shelters first!

  14. I don't think so. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Funny

    As a superhero in training, I've licked every part of that nuclear site to expose myself to radiation and while one puddle made my teeth feel warm, I still don't have any superpowers, so I would say it's a safe bet that this is a false alarm. It's unrelated but does anyone know a good dentist? Because my teeth recently fell out. ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:I don't think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't lick the radioactive waste, you bathe in it.

    2. Re:I don't think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, silly, you feed it to whatever animal you want your powers to be based on and then get it to bite you.

  15. What is this stuff? by seven+of+five · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Radioactive waste" doesn't tell me much. What are the nuclides, how many curies?

    1. Re: What is this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bannana peels from his lunch.

    2. Re: What is this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      It's no longer a secret what was done there; read Wikipedia. The problem is that this site sits right on top of the Columbia River. A major spill could result in an environmental disaster of nearly unprecedented scale and incredibly difficult remediation. Oops.

    3. Re: What is this stuff? by toonces33 · · Score: 1

      They already have an incredibly difficult remediation.

    4. Re:What is this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The best American nuclides

    5. Re: What is this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No problem at all. All that water will simply wash it out to sea. The possible contamination of Portland along the way is just a bonus.

  16. I M old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I remember when the internet was inhabited by smart people.

    1. Re: I M old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's make the internet great again!

  17. Re: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Send it to space (the final trash heap). Give it to the Sun, it won't mind... suppose it is more important to claim Mars rock than clean-up the previous competition though.

  18. Re: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ^ Clearly hasn't played Kerbal Space Program. The delta-V required to get something to the Sun is incredible.

    Sending that much mass (contaminated soil) into space will be super expensive and you'll want to get it out of an Earth orbit, preferably. Getting to Mars is cheap in comparison.

  19. Pants... by Tomahawk · · Score: 3, Funny

    Outside of the North Americas we use the word "trousers", with "pants" refers to underwear. So seeing a phrase like "radioactive material was found on his pants" tends to raise some eyebrows...

    1. Re: Pants... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's actually funnier how is written here: 'contamination was found ... on his pants...'

    2. Re:Pants... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      That is why they included the small print: at his knee :D

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Pants... by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Maybe he's a Mormon?

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    4. Re:Pants... by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      > "pants" refers to underwear

      Only in the UK. The rest of the english-speaking world uses the same sense as the USA does and "underpants" for what you call pants. (and what you used to call underpants as recently as 30 years ago)

    5. Re:Pants... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Well,
      the only american girl I talked to about this matter, actually she is african, but made college in the states, referred to them as "panties".
      And in Asia they seem to prefer pants and panties over underpants, too.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  20. Me too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I also worked at Hanford. I remember there was a hilarious incidence once, where a spent nuclear fuel rod fell down the back of a co-workers shirt and he only noticed driving home. Anyway, he pulled it out of his shirt and threw it out the window and then it was hit by a kid on a skateboard and fell down a drain, so all's well that end's well...

  21. Re:Russian hackers strike again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    he's too busy selling weapons to terrorists

  22. Bang up job fellas! by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

    Yes sir, I can see that this nuclear storage thing is going to end well!

  23. Re: by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Sending high-level nuclear waste to space is a bad idea because it represents a waste of 95% of the energy in the original fuel. Sending low-level waste to space is a bad idea because the tonnage of inert material that would have to be lifted is uneconomically high. Better to vitrify it and drop it into a subduction zone.

  24. Re: Russian hackers strike again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean like every other president? Like every single one. And the democrats are the worst.

    So try reading something besides anime porn and computer books.

  25. Possible Problem Admitting Facts by BrendaEM · · Score: 1

    Well, I guess they have no way of knowing : P

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM