LEAKING HANFORD TANKS WOULDN’T POSE RISK TO SITE VISITORS, LOCAL MAYOR SAYS

Leaking waste tanks at Hanford would not present a risk to visitors to Hanford’s historic B Reactor, said Kennewick Mayor Steve Young in response to questioning at a congressional hearing April 12 on creating a new Manhattan Project Historical Park. The bill to create a national park with sites at Hanford, Los Alamos and Oak Ridge was considered by the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation after it failed to pass Congress the last session. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said the bill has majority support to pass the House this session, after failing to win two-thirds of the vote last year in expedited consideration under a suspension of the rules. “It is a question not if, but when,” Hastings said. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Parks will consider a similar bill April 23.

B Reactor and other historical sites that tourists would visit at Hanford are well away from the tanks and because the tanks are underground there is no impact to the air, Young said under questioning by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.). Leaking tanks at Hanford have been an issue for decades, Hastings said. They hold enough waste to fill 20 U.S. House chambers, which is why environmental cleanup of Hanford and national repositories for the waste, including the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, are so important, he said. Hastings also discussed economics, saying most of the historic sites being considered for the three-state national park already are owned by the federal government. If they are not preserved, the Department of Energy would be legally required to tear many of them down at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, he said. Operating and maintaining the three-state park would cost $2.45 million to $4 million per year, according to the park service.