Hanford Close To Filling Second Radioactive Waste Tunnel With Grout
Listen
Story originally published Dec. 7, 2017
The U.S. Department of Energy is about start shoring up another train tunnel full of old radioactive equipment at the Hanford Site in southeast Washington state. This is all happening because a similar train tunnel full of waste—called Tunnel 1—collapsed this spring.
Federal contractors filled that tunnel with grout in November.
Tunnel 2 is a lot larger than Tunnel 1—nearly 1,700 feet long and holds 28 rail cars containing old contaminated equipment from a plutonium processing plant. Crews expect to start grouting up the tunnel before next fall.
Critics, including Northwest Native American tribes, have said that grouting closed these massive tunnels essentially makes them permanent radioactive waste dumps.
Tunnel 2 was built in the early 1960s and has had known structural problems. Government officials worry that the tunnel is under strain and that another collapse could send up a plume of radioactive dust.
Related Stories:
US Marshals Service says that Travis Decker is dead
The U.S. Marshals Service has said that Travis Decker, the man wanted in connection with the deaths of his three daughters, is dead.
Displaced in the fields: Domestic farmworkers and the cost of immigration shifts in the Pacific Northwest
As immigration policies shift nationwide, local farmworkers in the Northwest say they are losing hours and losing ground. Some fear being replaced by foreign workers on visas, while others worry about detention.
Walla Walla Heroes Memorial Run to raise scholarship money
5K organizers in Walla Walla, Washington, hope runners and walkers will overwhelm paths with their support. The run will raise scholarship money in honor of three healthcare workers who recently passed away.
