Guest columnist
A messy cleanup

By Kay Thode
Special to The Times

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The U.S. Department of Energy has been aggressively pursuing the authority to rename the radioactive wastes leaking from the tanks at Hanford nuclear reservation from "high level" to "low level," in order to avoid having to retrieve and turn into glass 60 to 80 percent of the waste. The current plan called for "glassifying" 99 percent.

Bye bye, salmon.

The Department of Energy also seeks to redefine how "clean" is clean, in order to avoid having to clean up all the contaminated groundwater that flows into the Columbia River. The department has decided that the groundwater at Hanford is "irreversibly and irretrievably committed to be contaminated." In other words, the federal Energy Department is committed to do nothing to clean up the groundwater or to avoid further radioactive leaks into the groundwater that flows into the Columbia past the Hanford Reach, one of the last pristine spawning grounds for juvenile salmon.

On the contrary, the Energy Department is planning to allow 7.8 million cubic feet of new radioactive waste and 5 million cubic feet of new mixed-radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes to be imported and buried in a massive new landfill at Hanford.

Within weeks, the Bush administration will issue a formal decision to allow siting of such a landfill, thereby opening the way for the importation and burial of the new wastes.

Sadly, the Washington state Department of Ecology has apparently decided to approve the U.S. Department of Energy's compliance with the new siting criteria, despite the fact that it violates the state and national Environmental Policy Act to proceed with any action on siting prior to there being a final environmental impact statement (EIS).

What can you do?

• Sign Initiative 297 to require that the waste already at Hanford be cleaned up before any new waste is added.

• Remind Gov. Gary Locke of his commitment not to allow the importation and burial of new waste at Hanford until the current waste is cleaned up.

• Tell the Washington state Department of Ecology to retract its decision to approve the U.S. Department of Energy's siting plan prior to an adequate EIS.

• Urge your congressional representatives to oppose the administration's plan.

• Attend a public meeting at 7 p.m. on Dec. 11 at the Mountaineers Club to discuss the cleanup of Hanford.

Kay Thode writes from Seattle.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company