Possible Radioactive Leak Investigated At Washington Nuclear Site (upi.com) 94
Authorities are investigating radioactive material found on a worker's clothing one week after a tunnel collapse at the waste nuclear waste site in the state of Washington. Around 7 p.m. Thursday, Washington River Protection Solutions, a government contractor contractor in charge of all 177 underground storage tanks at the nuclear site. detected high radiation readings on a robotic device that seven workers were pulling out of a tank. Then, contamination was also discovered on the clothing of one worker -- on one shoe, on his shirt and on his pants in the knee area.
"Radiological monitoring showed contamination on the unit that was three times the planned limit. Workers immediately stopped working and exited the area according to procedure," said Rob Roxburgh, deputy manager of WRPS Communications & Public Relations said to KING-TV. Using leak-detection instruments, WRPS said it did not find liquid escaping the tank. "Everybody was freaked, shocked, surprised," said a veteran worker, who was in direct contact with crew members. "[The contamination] was not expected. They're not supposed to find contamination in the annulus [safety perimeter] of the double shell tanks."
Washington's attorney general, urging a federal clean-up of the site, insists "This isn't the first potential leak and it won't be the last."
"Radiological monitoring showed contamination on the unit that was three times the planned limit. Workers immediately stopped working and exited the area according to procedure," said Rob Roxburgh, deputy manager of WRPS Communications & Public Relations said to KING-TV. Using leak-detection instruments, WRPS said it did not find liquid escaping the tank. "Everybody was freaked, shocked, surprised," said a veteran worker, who was in direct contact with crew members. "[The contamination] was not expected. They're not supposed to find contamination in the annulus [safety perimeter] of the double shell tanks."
Washington's attorney general, urging a federal clean-up of the site, insists "This isn't the first potential leak and it won't be the last."
Re: (Score:2)
This report brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
And by the Liberal Nuculer Iss-Yew Diversion Network. Hanford is a weapons facility dating to the early Cold War, when we knew little about nuclear waste storage.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I'm a downwinder (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the "cleanup" is that once you have "cleaned up" the radiation, where are you going to put it? In a landfill? That is just moving the problem from one place to another. A geological repository like Yucca Mountain doesn't work, because that is for small amounts of high level waste, not large amounts of low level waste like we have at Hanford.
There really aren't any good solutions, but in politics "something must be done" so paying contractors to play environmental theater while they move stuff around in circles is about the best we can do.
Re: I'm a downwinder (Score:3, Interesting)
Find a a shallow water off-shore geologic subduction zone,drill in close to drop down point,pump in low level waste,it's not perfect,but it is probably far safer than gathering it all together on a land site and storing/processing,if it seems to work ok,for say a century,start getting rid of the realy dangerous high level crud in the same way. /waste industr
Keep fingers crossed for several thousand years until "proven" a safer system.
Or combine two projects,ultra deep moho drilling project funded by nuclear
Re: (Score:2)
That's a contradiction in terms. If it's subducting, then the weight of the descending oceanic slab will pull the surface of the ocean down into a trench. You're looking at drilling into 10,000ft or deeper water - doable, but not routine.
Re: (Score:1)
^ Clearly hasn't played Kerbal Space Program. The delta-V required to get something to the Sun is incredible.
Sending that much mass (contaminated soil) into space will be super expensive and you'll want to get it out of an Earth orbit, preferably. Getting to Mars is cheap in comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
Sending high-level nuclear waste to space is a bad idea because it represents a waste of 95% of the energy in the original fuel. Sending low-level waste to space is a bad idea because the tonnage of inert material that would have to be lifted is uneconomically high. Better to vitrify it and drop it into a subduction zone.
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't you watch The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret? You bottle the stuff and sell it as a power drink.
Re: (Score:2)
government contractor contractor
The only issue is that contractor contractors have been known on the odd occasion to accidentally the whole thing.
Re: (Score:2)
"once you have "cleaned up" the radiation, where are you going to put it?"
Ideally into a MSR, where it can be burned down (or left alone for around 300 years when it should be safe enough to handle anyway)
Re: (Score:2)
I used to work at Hanford Site... (Score:4, Insightful)
and three times the planned limit is nothing. Before I quit, we had a scare where the monitors said there was a "major" problem, but it was someone that had an old smoke detector in their backpack that they brought from home that they forgot about. If a smoke detector is considered safe in your home, then having one at a radioactive dump shouldn't be considered a problem, but it was. This is just people being overly cautious.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps exposure to radiation is what made him so strong? Having said that there's no evidence that he was green, but then again colour film hadn't been invented then.
Re: I used to work at Hanford Site... (Score:1)
Ftfy
Re: (Score:2)
I get the reference.
Re: (Score:3)
Agreed. Who carries around old smoke detectors? Plus you won't read any alpha rays coming from the metal can.
Re: (Score:1)
David Hahn [wikipedia.org].
You might say he lived to regret it.
Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... (Score:5, Funny)
Americium, Fuck Yeah!
Re:I used to work at Hanford Site... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but you don't set such limits to detect catastrophes. You set such limits to detect unforeseen circumstances that might, perhaps in rare situations, lead to catastrophe.
A worker being exposed to harmful levels of radiation is catastrophic. A worker being exposed to a level of radiation that is medically harmless but which should not have occurred is a situation that requires investigation, because that means something about your assumptions isn't quite right. That doesn't mean you ought to panic; in any sensibly conservative procedure you have to accept that false positive concern is a routine event -- as in your story of the smoke detector.
Re: (Score:3)
When Chernobyl happened the first view days it was kept s secret.
But then research agencies all over Europe suddenly had problems.
In my university (KIT Karlsruhe), the institute that had some radio nuclides had radiation alerts for days, until they figured there was no problem _inside_ of the institute but that people were carrying in the"radiation" with their shoes in from outside.
Re: (Score:1)
it was someone that had an old smoke detector in their backpack that they brought from home that they forgot about.
They brought an old smoke detector from home to their job at Hanford. Well, they "forgot" about it. Hmmm.
1. ) Why was it in their backpack in the first place?
2. ) They work at Hanford. They know that smoke detectors contain a very small amount of radioactive material.
3. ) They brought it to Hanford, where radioactive material is handled, tracked, and detected.
I'm not saying that they planned to do anything shifty, but this just doesn't sound "right".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Except that they are intended to just be thrown away [epa.gov].
There are no special disposal instructions for ionization smoke detectors. They may be thrown away with household trash, however your community may have a separate recycling program.
The alpha from Am241 will not be detectable at any distance from the detector even if the metallic/ceramic enclosure is breached. The mean free path of an alpha particle in air is very small [wikipedia.org] - about 5 cm.
Me too. (Score:1)
I also worked at Hanford. I remember there was a hilarious incidence once, where a spent nuclear fuel rod fell down the back of a co-workers shirt and he only noticed driving home. Anyway, he pulled it out of his shirt and threw it out the window and then it was hit by a kid on a skateboard and fell down a drain, so all's well that end's well...
Re: (Score:1)
Someone goofed pulling an instrument package out of the methyl ethyl nastiness of the tank farms and someone is surprised?
Why do some people want to portray usual business at a cleanup facility as some sort of world devastating crisis?
I hope the worker as good health insurance (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Three times the allowed limits. Hmmm....
Chances of cancer from same? Zero. Three times the allowed limits (unless they've changed the limits a lot since I was paying attention 30 years ago) is less than one chest X-Ray....
Now, if they'd sustained that level for a whole year, that might be an issue. But a one-time, short-term exposure only three times the limit? Meaningless....
Re: (Score:1)
You have probably noticed that all news about such matters in the USA almost never contains any technical data that can be used to make an actual, informed assessment of its significance. Even worse, it is usually presented in a form such as "3 times higher than normal!!!" or some such jibberish because while meaningless without further information, a scientifically illiterate populace is easily swayed by the apparently alarming fact.
All "news" is psyops/manipulation at this point.
Re: (Score:2)
"Even worse, it is usually presented in a form such as "3 times higher than normal!!!" or some such jibberish because while meaningless without further information, a scientifically illiterate populace is easily swayed by the apparently alarming fact."
Compounded by memories of radiation injuries to the general public which WERE caused by people playing fast and loose with (lack of) safety standards.
Not just the radium girls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] but also ill-advised "pedoscopes" - https://en.wik [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
So it's taking all this time for nothing to progress, and you want to start a congressional investigation? How about just getting it done, which is apparently not what current government can do anymore.
This is what happens when it's just government contractors, contractors all the way down.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously gamma radiation corrupted the editor's PC memory resulting in the duplication of words and addition of spurious periods.
I don't think so. (Score:4, Funny)
As a superhero in training, I've licked every part of that nuclear site to expose myself to radiation and while one puddle made my teeth feel warm, I still don't have any superpowers, so I would say it's a safe bet that this is a false alarm. It's unrelated but does anyone know a good dentist? Because my teeth recently fell out. ;)
What is this stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Pants... (Score:4, Funny)
Outside of the North Americas we use the word "trousers", with "pants" refers to underwear. So seeing a phrase like "radioactive material was found on his pants" tends to raise some eyebrows...
Re: Pants... (Score:1)
It's actually funnier how is written here: 'contamination was found ... on his pants...'
Re: (Score:2)
That is why they included the small print: at his knee :D
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe he's a Mormon?
Re: (Score:2)
> "pants" refers to underwear
Only in the UK. The rest of the english-speaking world uses the same sense as the USA does and "underpants" for what you call pants. (and what you used to call underpants as recently as 30 years ago)
Re: (Score:2)
Well,
the only american girl I talked to about this matter, actually she is african, but made college in the states, referred to them as "panties".
And in Asia they seem to prefer pants and panties over underpants, too.
Bang up job fellas! (Score:1)
Possible Problem Admitting Facts (Score:2)