5 Things You Should Know About the Hanford Site and Tunnel Collapse
A quick guide to unpacking yesterday’s news.
What is the Hanford Nuclear Reservation?
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is a federally managed area about half the size of Rhode Island in the southeast corner of Washington state. The site was part of the Manhattan Project, the US’s historic multi-state complex used to design and build out our nuclear weapons arsenal during the Second World War. It is home to a number of former plutonium production facilities, which are in various stages of decommissioning and clean up.
I saw some scary headlines, what happened there yesterday?
A 20-foot-long section of an underground rail tunnel beneath a plutonium production facility called the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility (PUREX) collapsed, potentially affecting an area of about 400 square feet. These tunnels contain contaminated equipment and materials from the facility, and were sealed in the 1990s. It’s believed that routine road maintenance was the cause of the collapse. Robots are currently being used to inspect the accident. Here is the official feed from Hanford for updates.
Who’s in charge?
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, like most former weapons facilities, is managed by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. This office has successfully completed clean up jobs at 91 of the 107 sites across the country that have required nuclear waste remediation. The remaining sites are some of the tougher jobs. They are supported by local contractors and emergency management teams including fire and police squads.
Is anyone at risk of harm?
No staff were injured and no radiation has been released. As a precaution, staff were told to take cover (essentially to go and stay indoors), however there does not appear to be a risk to the public.
What should I make of this?
While nuclear weapons and nuclear energy are profoundly different technologies, public perceptions around anything nuclear-related can get pretty muddled. Regardless of the origins of the contamination, it is absolutely critical that all types of nuclear operations keep protecting public health and the environment their top priorities. As with many industrial facilities in that era, we didn’t take the same level of environmental precaution as we should have and as we now do. Cleaning up the mistakes of the past is a moral obligation, an important part of regaining public trust in nuclear energy, and something that the industry should continue to take very seriously.
Read more about the accident here.
