Most polluted site in N. America: Can nuclear waste ever be cleaned up?

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Errors, Costs Stall Nuclear Waste Project
Radioactive sludge that threatens the Columbia River is still untouched after years of setbacks. The job's complexity has taxed U.S. expertise.
By Ralph Vartabedian, Times Staff Writer
September 4, 2006

RICHLAND, Wash. — On a desert plateau seven miles from the Columbia River, a massive federal project to clean up a Cold War-era nuclear weapons plant is deeply troubled.

The effort to avoid a future environmental calamity here, at the most polluted site in North America, is a priority of the Energy Department but has foundered because of engineering mistakes and runaway costs. Fifty-three million gallons of radioactive sludge, most of it the texture of ketchup, is stored in scores of underground tanks, some of which have leaked for years.

The Energy Department and its lead contractor Bechtel Corp. are trying to build a sophisticated waste treatment complex — a small-scale industrial city — that would transform the sludge into radioactive glass. After spending $4 billion since 1989 and getting rid of three previous contractors, the program has yet to transform a gallon of sludge....

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The project is a long-distance race to empty the leaky tanks and secure the radioactive waste before it becomes a greater menace to the Columbia River. The job is likely to take decades, and the price tag could approach $100 billion.

In January, the Energy Department stopped construction on the two most important parts of the project after it realized it had miscalculated the earthquake risks at the sprawling federal facility, known as the Hanford Site. In recent weeks, it put off any resumption of construction until after October 2007. At best, the plant would be finished in 2019....Hanford raises questions about how effectively the radioactive waste dumps left over from the Cold War can be cleaned up — even with the best technology and with almost unlimited federal spending....

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-hanford4sep04,0,6967796.story?track=mostemailedlink

[jpak]

1. But...but...but...reprocessing irradiated uranium to produce plutonium

is Clean and Green.

This article can't be true.