Tagged: Environment and Planning

An independent oversight team from the Department of Energy is visiting the Hanford Nuclear Reservation this week. Richland Correspondent Anna King explains why.

The agency is called the Department of Energy’s Office of Health, Safety and Security or H.S.S. It’s responsible for enforcing the Energy department’s self regulation of nuclear safety, worker health and safety and information security.

Washington state Ecology is rolling out a new draft permit for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington. The document is 16,476 pages long. Public meetings are scheduled across the Northwest including one in Seattle Tuesday night and another in Portland Wednesday. This new permit will determine how Hanford waste is treated, stored and disposed of for the next 10 years. Dieter Bohrmann is an Ecology spokesman. He says this document reflects that Hanford is unique both in its size and scope.

Dieter Bohrmann: “I think if there were any way we could have simplified it, and cut 10,000 pages out of it – yeah. You know, but even with that, it was still going to be a large document regardless.”

A group that's against logging on state owned forest lands drew a crowd of onlookers at the Oregon State Capitol Thursday morning. A member of Cascadia Forest Defenders climbed a flagpole and draped a large banner that read "Schools versus Trees? We want both!”

Giant smoke stacks and industrial dump sites are no longer the only water quality problem on the Columbia River. a recent study has found that our day to day life has a major impact as well.

U.S. Geological Survey researchers looked at nine cities along the river, from Wenatchee to Longview, Wash. They detected hundreds of contaminants flowing from wastewater treatment plants and stormwater runoff.

Hydrologist Jennifer Morace says the toxic contaminants included things like shampoo and pharmaceuticals.

A draft environmental plan for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation puts off a decision on how to treat a big portion of nuclear tank waste at the southeast Washington site. We’re talking about what to do with radioactive gunk called low-activity waste. The delay of that decision is nettling Washington’s Ecology department. Correspondent Anna King reports.

RICHLAND, Wash. – New research has found that commercial building owners can chop their heating and cooling costs nearly in half by implementing a few energy efficient controls.

Those big rooftop heating and cooling systems you see on top of supermarkets and strip malls could produce big savings for building owners. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., studied buildings across the country. They used computer simulations to find an average savings of 25 to 35 percent after retrofitting existing systems. Srinivas Katipamula led the study.

SALEM, Ore. – Environmental groups are mobilizing against proposals to export coal through Northwest terminals. Protesters rallied outside a land use meeting in Salem Monday. They're asking Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber to block permits for several coal terminals.