05.27.04

Cantwell Meets With State and Local Leaders to Discuss Opposition to Department of Energy Plan to Leave Radioactive Waste in Leaking Tanks

Boat tour of Hanford Reach explores risks to Columbia River posed by DOE plan

White Bluffs Boat Launch in the Hanford Reach, WA – Senator Maria Cantwell today met with Tri-Cities leaders and Washington state officials to address their shared opposition to the U.S. Department of Energy's plan to leave radioactive nuclear waste in leaking, underground tanks. The group took a boat tour of the Hanford Reach to explore the risks that DOE's plan poses to the Columbia River.

"I am here today with these community leaders to demonstrate that the Hanford community wants nuclear waste cleaned up and cleaned up right," Cantwell said. "Thirty years of settled law has made it clear that the Federal government has a responsibility to clean up Hanford. Now, DOE is once again attempting a sneak attack on nuclear waste cleanup with a backroom deal to rewrite 30 years of settled law, and once again, we're not going to back down."

The discussion and boat tour included Cantwell, Richland City Councilwoman Rita Mazur, Richland Mayor Pro-tem Carol Moser, Washington State Department of Ecology Nuclear Waste Program Manager Mike Wilson, Senior Assistant Attorney General David Mears, and other community and government leaders.

The group took the boat tour to explore part of the area threatened by DOE's plan. Already, contamination plumes from the tank farms 7 miles inland are reaching shore. The tour showed sites where pollution like chromium and strontium-90 is already reaching the Columbia River. It also highlighted the beauty of the Upper Columbia River, which represents the last free-flowing stretch of the river, and in which about 80 percent of the Columbia's fall Chinook salmon spawn.

The U.S. Senate is now considering legislation that would allow the U.S. Department of Energy to begin implementing its long-standing plan of abandoning radioactive nuclear waste in deteriorating tanks at nuclear waste sites around the country and covering the waste with grout. The provision was snuck into the Department of Defense bill in a backroom meeting without a single public hearing. Senator Maria Cantwell is leading the fight against this plan on the Senate floor. Senate will resume consideration of this legislation Wednesday, June 2.

Thursday's event illustrates what's at stake for Washington state in this battle. More than 1.1 million people live near or on the Columbia River and 53 million gallons of high-level waste is stored in leaking tanks at the Hanford Reservation just seven miles from the river. Over one million gallons of toxic waste has already leaked into the ground and traces of the radioactive waste have been discovered in the river.

On her web site, Cantwell is collecting signatures for a petition she will soon send to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Sen. Bill Frist, and Sen. John Warner to oppose DOE's plan to leave the highly radioactive waste in the leaking underground tanks.