By Lindsey Bever and Steven Mufson
The Energy Department ordered hundreds of workers at its Hanford nuclear site in Washington state to “take cover” Tuesday morning after the collapse of 20-foot long portion of a tunnel used to store contaminated radioactive materials.
The Energy Department said it activated its emergency operations protocol after reports of a “cave-in” at the 200 East Area in Hanford, a sprawling complex about 200 miles from Seattle where the government has been working to clean up radioactive materials left over from the country’s nuclear weapons program.
The Energy Department said in a statement that the 20 foot section was part of a tunnel that is hundreds of feet long and “used to store contaminated materials.” The tunnel is one of two that run into the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility, also known as PUREX. The section that collapsed was “in an area where the two tunnels join together,” the department said. The PUREX facility, once used to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, has been idle for years but remains “highly contaminated,” the Energy Department said.
Energy Department officials said that there was “no indication of a release of contamination at this point” but that emergency crews were still testing the area for contamination. Responders were also using a robot to take video and survey the damage. The department said that Energy Secretary Rick Perry had been briefed, adding that “everyone has been accounted for and there is no initial indication of any worker exposure or an airborne radiological release.”
But Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said there was still cause of concern. “It appears that this is a potentially serious event,” he said. “Collapse of the earth covering the tunnels could lead to a considerable radiological release.”
An August 2015 report by the Vanderbilt University civil and environmental engineering department said that the PUREX facility and the two tunnels had “the potential for significant onsite consequences” and that “various pieces of dangerous debris and equipment containing or contaminated with dangerous/mixed waste” had been placed inside the tunnels.
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| The portion of the 20-foot long portion of a tunnel that collapsed at the 200 East Area in Hanford, Wash. (Hanford Site) |
Cleaning up radioactive materials at the Hanford site, which is a federal facility, has been one of the Energy Department’s priorities for years. Reactors located at Hanford produced plutonium for America’s nuclear weapons program. Plutonium production ended in 1980 and the cleanup program began in 1989.
Former Energy Department official Robert Alvarez said that the rail cars once carried spent fuel from a reactor along the river to the PUREX chemical processing facility, which then extracted dangerous plutonium. He said the plant lies near the middle of the sprawling 580-square mile Hanford site and was “a very high hazard operation.”
Many contaminated pieces of equipment, including the rail cars, have been simply left in the tunnels, he said. The Vanderbilt report said that there were eight rail cars in the older tunnel and 28 in the newer one.
The cave-in was discovered during a “routine surveillance,” according to the Energy Department. Photographs showed a gaping hole, plainly evident because the tunnels are largely above ground.
Workers near the PUREX facility were told to shelter in-place and access to the area was restricted, according to the Energy Department statement. Officials requested that the Federal Aviation Administration put a temporary flight restriction in place, according to the FAA.
Pam Larsen, executive director of Hanford Communities, said she notified the area mayors, county commissioners and the governor’s office. She also said the White House reached out regarding the incident.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said in a statement he was aware that “a tunnel was breached that was used to bury radioactive waste from the production of plutonium at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.”
“This is a serious situation, and ensuring the safety of the workers and the community is the top priority,” Inslee said. “Our understanding is that the site went into immediate lockdown, in which workers were told to seek shelter, and all access to the area has been closed.
“Federal, state and local officials are coordinating closely on the response, and the state Department of Ecology is in close communication with the U.S. Department of Energy Richland Office. My office is in close communication with these agencies and directly with Department of Energy headquarters in DC. We will continue to monitor this situation and assist the federal government in its response.”
The two tunnels are each hundreds of feet long and are covered with about eight feet of soil, according to the Energy Department, which added “the depth of the subsidence of soil appears to be into the tunnel.”
Alvarez, a former Energy Department official, cited a 1997 report, which said that the older tunnel was about 360 feet long, 22 feet high. and 19 feet wide. First constructed decades ago, the walls of the older tunnel are 14 inches thick and held up by pressure-treated Douglas fir timbers arranged side by side, the report said. They rest on reinforced concrete footings. The newer tunnel was built with reinforced concrete.
Although the Trump administration has vowed to slash the budgets of most Energy Department programs, the administration does not plan to skimp on the department’s program charged with the Hanford cleanup and with other nuclear sites.It has requested $6.5 billion for agency’s environmental management program for 2018.
The budget for Hanford alone is about $2.3 billion in the current fiscal year, about $1.5 billion of that going to the management and treatment of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste currently stored in underground storage tanks.
Trump has been slow to fill science related positions, and he has not yet named a new assistant secretary for environmental management. It is currently being headed by a career department employee serving in an acting capacity.
During his recent confirmation hearing, Perry was asked by Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) about the Hanford site.
“So are you committed to funding Hanford cleanup and what it takes and getting the waste treatment plant finished?” Cantwell asked.
“Senator, I’m committed to working with you and prioritizing what is one of the most dangerous, most polluted sites that we have in this country,” Perry replied. He vowed to visit Hanford and said he looked forward to “walking that site with you.”
On Tuesday, Cantwell issued a statement praising first responders and saying that she was monitoring reports. She said that “worker safety must be our number one priority, and we need to understand whether there has been any environmental contamination resulting from the subsidence at these tunnels.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said, “This is a serious situation, and ensuring the safety of the workers and the community is the top priority.”
Chris Mooney has contributed to this article.
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