Hanford workers dig up contaminated dirt near Columbia River
Posted: Tuesday, September 29, 2009
RICHLAND, WA - This week workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington began digging up dirt in one of the most contaminated sites near the Columbia River. As Correspondent Anna King reports, digging up material at Hanford can yield a potpourri of nasty stuff.
The K-East and K-West Basins near the Columbia River are where the government stored uranium rods in deep pools. Some of those rods stayed there for decades and decayed into highly radioactive sludge at the bottom. Cleanup crews have drained the K-East pool and transferred the sludge into safer containers. Now they are turning their attention to the soil under that pool. It was contaminated by leaks of more than a million gallons of waste in the 1970s and 1990s. But it’s not really clear what’s in the soil. Dee Millikin, is the spokesperson for CH2M Hill, which manages the crews doing the cleanup.
Dee Millikin: They have a pretty good idea obviously of what they are working with. But there is always the element of surprise once we get deeper into the soil.
Millikin thinks crews will remove about six thousand tons of soil all together. The work is expected to be done as early as this spring.
Copyright 2009 Northwest Public Radio