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Tests Show Workers At Hanford Nuclear Facility Inhaled Radioactive Plutonium (king5.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from King 5, a local news station for Seattle, Washington: On June 8 approximately 350 Hanford workers were ordered to "take cover" after alarms designed to detect elevated levels of airborne radioactive contamination went off. It was quickly determined that radioactive particles had been swept out of a containment zone at the plutonium finishing plant (PFP) demolition site. The work is considered the most hazardous demolition project on the entire nuclear reservation. At the time Hanford officials called the safety measure "precautionary." Officials from the U.S. Dept. of Energy, which owns Hanford, and the contractor in charge of the demolition, CH2M Hill, downplayed the seriousness of the event with statements including, it appeared "workers were not at risk", "(the alarm went off) in an area where contamination is expected" and there was "no evidence radioactive particles had been inhaled" by anyone.
The KING 5 Investigators have discovered those statements are incorrect. An internal CH2M Hill email sent to their employees on July 21 was obtained by KING. It states that 301 (test kits) have been issued to employees and of the first 65 workers tested, a "small number of employees" showed positive results for "internal exposures" (by radioactive plutonium). Sources tell KING the "small number of employees" is twelve. Twelve people out of 65 is 20 percent. Still outstanding are 236 tests. A communication specialist with CH2M Hill sent a statement that more positive results are expected. "We expect additional positive results because analytical tests like a bioassay can detect radiological contamination at levels far lower than what field monitoring can detect," said Destry Henderson of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company.
The KING 5 Investigators have discovered those statements are incorrect. An internal CH2M Hill email sent to their employees on July 21 was obtained by KING. It states that 301 (test kits) have been issued to employees and of the first 65 workers tested, a "small number of employees" showed positive results for "internal exposures" (by radioactive plutonium). Sources tell KING the "small number of employees" is twelve. Twelve people out of 65 is 20 percent. Still outstanding are 236 tests. A communication specialist with CH2M Hill sent a statement that more positive results are expected. "We expect additional positive results because analytical tests like a bioassay can detect radiological contamination at levels far lower than what field monitoring can detect," said Destry Henderson of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company.
It's true that Plutonium is highly toxic, but an airborne particle is probably not enough to cause significant health effects from that (the toxology profile suggests the level for that is 10 ppm) - depending on how many are inhaled of course.
But the radiation is indeed the bigger hazard. Plutonium's long half-life means it's not as dangerously radioactive as some other elements - so long as exposure is relatively brief or distant (inverse square law applies). When it gets inside you though, it sticks in there for decades, and at that extremely close range the radiation is a lot more powerful, so your chances of cancer go up significantly.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Wasn't Hanford intended for nuclear weapons development?
Hanford was from the bad old days of nuclear weapons development where everything was done as fast and cheaply as possible. It has nothing to do with power generation
Wasn't Hanford intended for nuclear weapons development?
Yep, the unheard of twin, the plutonium used in the second bomb on Japan was produce at Hanford. Production continued till Chernobyl blew up (steam explosion). They were a carbon moderated reactor as was the last operating nuclear production reactor at Hanford.
The industrial accident is tragic but the "spin" is worse because it can lead to poor precautions and more accidents.
The point here is not about using nukes or not (the stuff exists and has to be dealt with), it's about the lying sacks of shit who hurt everyone by doing so - even their own cause.
Nuke fanboys, if you want to know why we don't have reactors everywhere it's due to these lying sacks of shit making it so an entire industry is not trusted and not the powerless hippies you keep blaming.
I bet these workers are so incredibly glad nuclear power is such a clean source of energy.
But since Hanford was a nuclear weapons plant, this story has nothing to do with sources of energy.
Except you failed at physics of how the different types of radiation work. We are dealing with an internal alpha source, not an external alpha source. Alpha sources are 1000 times more dangerous when inhaled or ingested (1000 times is not a made up number, this has been experimentally shown, see "Effect of Dose Rate on the Induction of Experimental Lung Cancer in Hamsters by Alpha Radiation" 1985 study).
The reason is quite simple, alpha radiation has extremely poor penetration capability (2-3 layers of paper is enough to stop it, which is less than the layers of dead skin cells we have on top of our actual skin). As a result, external alpha sources are not very dangerous. But put that source inside the body, where it is past the dead skin that protects you, and suddenly, you have a cancer generator sitting right next to cells that it can reach.
Given that this was Hanford, it was most likely Pu-239 that we are dealing with, which has a half-life of 24,100 years. The only way it will exit the body once ingested or inhaled is if it manages to be coughed up (unlikely), or absorbed into the blood stream/lymphic system and manage to travel out as excrement without getting trapped in say the liver, kidneys, lymph nodes, or any of the other pathways within the body (at which point it will then most likely cause enough DNA damage to surrounding cells to create cancer).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
171,000 killed, or 40x the deaths attributable to the Chernobyl disaster.
You can say we (mostly) don't build dams like that anymore, but we don't build reactors like Chernobyl anymore either.