B5. Prioritizing Cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation to Protect the Public’s Health
Related Policies
APHA policy statement 87-13: The role of public health practitioners, academics, and advocates in relation to armed conflict and war1
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation [Hanford], where the United States manufactured the fissionable materials for the world’s first atomic bomb, is the largest, most complex contamination area in the United States, encompassing 4 current and past National Priority List (better known as Superfund) sites2–7 and spanning a history of both deliberate and accidental hazardous material releases.8–11 Consequently, the US Department of Energy (DOE), as the responsible party, has faced cost overruns, delays, mismanagement, and tactics with minimal efficacy.12 In addition, recommendations for participatory, transparent, and aggressive cleanup by expert committees have not been followed.13
The purpose of this paper is to establish policy positions for the American Public Health Association (APHA) on the issue of hazardous waste cleanup at Hanford. Hanford nuclear site remediation delays and mismanagement represent a mounting threat to public and environmental health. In 1989, the APHA passed a resolution titled Public Health Hazards at Nuclear Weapon Facilities (APHA policy 89-17).14 The current position paper augments APHA’s more than 20-year-old resolution and provides the scientific basis and justification for ensuring cleanup at Hanford is done in a timely manner with adequate oversight.
To ensure cleanup of the nuclear waste at Hanford is adequate to safeguard the public’s health, APHA adopts the following positions:
- Reassert that the cleanup of nuclear waste sites is a public health priority. Increase awareness among public health professionals regarding the extent of public health threats at Hanford and all nuclear waste sites to promote stronger public health policy to support comprehensive and sufficient cleanup.
- Expand the body of independent public health research on current and future health risks from Hanford. Advocate for comprehensive research on radiation and chemical exposure to workers, long-term low-dose exposures to the public, environmental effects of groundwater and river contamination, and risks of potential exposure that will guide future land-use decisions.
- Call for reasonable and effective external oversight of Hanford cleanup efforts. Such oversight should mandate cleanup to focus on the completion of remediation and require that development of exposure scenarios consider both ecological risk and the prospect of less-restrictive land uses in the future.
- Assert that no new waste should be brought to and stored at the Hanford site until the site is cleaned. After complete cleanup, waste should be stored at Hanford only if the health and environmental impacts have been properly characterized, quantified, and mitigated.
- Call for DOE to formally incorporate tribal exposure scenarios and cleanup standards into the Hanford cleanup plan. The historical rights of local tribes to unrestricted use of the Hanford region and the greater Columbia River Basin are guaranteed by the Treaty of 1855; therefore, cleanup efforts must prioritize the restoration of soil, groundwater, and the Columbia River to levels at which natural products such as fish, crops, wild plants, and livestock contain acceptably low levels of Hanford-derived contaminants.
History
A brief overview of Hanford’s history demonstrates how nuclear weaponry production has consistently been prioritized over the health and welfare of local residents and workers, setting the precedent of the current cleanup effort. The Hanford site reflects the prolific and unforeseen consequences of America’s decision to produce nuclear weapons, both for the victims of those weapons as well as the communities living in the shadow of production facilities.
Taking the Land
The discovery of fission came just as Germany was preparing to embark on armed conquest of Europe. After the entry of the United States into World War II, and faced with concerns Nazi Germany was outpacing the United States in nuclear weaponry development, President Roosevelt increased funding for the “Manhattan Project” in June 1942. Shortly afterward, officials began searching for an appropriate site for plutonium production.15 The site would have to be large, remote, and have an abundant water source and a dependable electrical supply. Washington State’s Columbia River basin was quickly identified as an ideal location.16
Under the Second War Powers Act of 1942, a directive was issued for the federal government to acquire 670 mi2 in southeastern Washington. In March 1943, approximately 1,300 residents of the region received letters giving them between 2 weeks and 3 months to leave; the government paid residents what it considered a fair-market value for the land.17 Tribal governments and their populations were also dispossessed of their land. The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and the Nez Perce Tribe had all signed a treaty with the US government in 1855 that guaranteed tribal rights for fishing, hunting, gathering, and grazing in the region. The land and the resources of the Columbia River held special cultural and religious significance for the tribes, and many Native Americans were dependent on fish from the Columbia as a basic food source.18 Nonetheless, the tribes were asked to unconditionally surrender their access to the land and the river. They did not receive compensation from the US government.15
Hanford Growth
Construction of the Hanford Site began soon after the government acquired the land. At the height of Hanford construction activity, 45,000 personnel worked on site. The cost of constructing Hanford represented approximately 20% of the $2 billion in total costs of the Manhattan Project (1940s dollars).17
By late 1944, Hanford was producing the world’s first plutonium; a bomb fueled by plutonium from the site was successfully tested on July 16, 1945. On August 6, 1945, the “Little Boy” bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people. Japan refused to agree to unconditional surrender, and on August 9, 1945, the “Fat Man” bomb fueled by plutonium from the Hanford site was dropped on Nagasaki, killing 40,000 people.15 Japan’s subsequent surrender was celebrated across the United States, and workers at Hanford were offered military commendations. Meanwhile, mortality in Japan secondary to radiation sickness continued to climb; by January 1946, the estimated death toll from the 2 bombs was 280,000.15
In the emerging Cold War, plutonium production at Hanford continued with significant consequences for those who lived and worked in its shadow. During the Manhattan Project, social accountability had been suspended; charged with building the world’s first nuclear weapons in as short a time as possible, officials at Hanford had developed an inward-focused command-and-control structure. This structure would continue to characterize management of the site for decades to come.17
In the postwar years, no federal or state standards of tolerable radiation exposure levels had been set yet by stature of enforceable law. At Hanford, emissions were governed by contracting companies’ agreements to comply with the self-set scientific guidelines.18,19 As early as the late 1940s, Hanford whistleblowers spoke out about health and safety conditions at Hanford, prompting concerns about waste disposal practices and worker exposure to radioactivity. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)18 was soon established by Congress to protect the environment and regulate safety in plutonium production. The AEC avowed an open information policy,15 but in practice it was limited by an overriding preoccupation with national security. By 1948, only 2 of 158 AEC reports about Hanford’s activities were deemed “publishable.” These published reports asserted there had been minimal contamination of the air, water, and soil,20 when, in fact, monitoring of water, air, soil, milk, and animal contamination indicated the public was being exposed to high levels of radiation as early as 1944.15 The secrecy of Hanford plutonium production concealed potential hazards from workers, local residents, and public and health officials.2 A classified 1949 AEC report noted,
We do not ask that safety be ‘first’ but that its moral, economic, and catastrophe importance be fairly balanced against other considerations . . . we believe [the principle of calculated risk] has been used to excuse risks quite uncalculated . . . and the degree of risk justified in wartime is no longer appropriate.21
As continuation of the Cold War prompted intensification of production at Hanford, the site workforce expanded, and, consequently, the local population grew rapidly. By 1947, the region was the third most populated area of Washington.15 As more people moved to the region to work and live, hazards at Hanford came to represent a greater threat to population health.
Transitioning From Weapon Production to Cleanup Activity
On July 26, 1963, President Kennedy signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty that outlawed nuclear tests in the atmosphere, under water, and in outer space.15 One year later, President Johnson announced nationwide cutbacks in plutonium production. In 1969, the United States and the Soviet Union began Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), culminating in a signed treaty in 1972. By 1973, 8 of Hanford’s 9 reactors were shut down.17 In the years to follow, a series of reorganizations of federal agencies resulted in the formation of the US DOE, which assumed responsibility for the Hanford site in 1977.22
Although support for the nuclear program remained strong in the Tri-Cities area of Washington,17 public reaction to the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 and to the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986 raised questions about the safety of nuclear power and plutonium production in the public at large. In 1987, flaws in the sole remaining reactor at Hanford prompted DOE to shut down production permanently. Initial plans to ship, store, and manage the nation’s nuclear waste at the site were put aside because of “the existence of an immense amount of waste at Hanford,” and the DOE mission at the site shifted to cleanup.15
Documentation of Hanford waste sites for potential cleanup under the authority of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) had already begun in 1985; in 1987, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated procedures to place Hanford on the National Priorities List. After years of negotiations, in May 1989 DOE, EPA, and the Washington Department of Ecology established a cleanup agreement. The Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, known informally as the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA), was signed in May 1989.17
Cleanup and Land Use
The enormity of the task of cleaning the nation’s biggest site of nuclear waste is evident in the EPAs’ figures describing the amount of waste at the site. More than 33 million m3 and 100 million L3 of contaminated soil and debris resulted from the Hanford site’s weapon production activities. Over the years, roughly 1.8 trillion L of contaminated water were discharged directly into the soil, resulting in contaminated groundwater reaching more than 200 km2.23 As much as 450 billion gal of contaminated wastes have been dumped into unlined soil trenches at Hanford.24 Although in 1989 DOE promised to clean up the site in 30 years (2019), by 2008, best estimates cited progress at one third of the way to completion.4
The TPA is a legally binding document: the “Legal Agreement” defines and prioritizes the remediation work to be done, establishes each agency’s roles and responsibilities, serves as a basis for budgeting, and sets up dispute resolution mechanisms and an enforcement plan. The “Action Plan” sets a schedule with milestones for implementation of the cleanup and permitting efforts. An associated “Community Relations Plan” describes how the public will be informed of and involved in changes to the agreement. Technical cleanup issues and modifications of milestones have resulted in more than 400 changes since 1989.25
The Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), created under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (1972), acts as a nonpartisan oversight group, independent from the TPA agencies. The HAB is intended to represent the diverse interests related to the Hanford cleanup; it offers nonbinding advice to TPA agencies regarding policy development, decisions, and actions.26
Although various stakeholders are involved in Hanford’s cleanup, DOE is ultimately responsible for carrying it out. Mismanagement and delays of cleanup at the Hanford site have led to criticisms of DOE not only from the HAB and the public but also from other federal agencies. In June 2009, a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report indicated that 9 of 10 of the DOE’s major cleanup projects have experienced cost increases of up to $25 to $42 billion and delays of 2 to 15 years. The report posited cost and time overruns to be the result of “inconsistent application of the project management tools and techniques on part of DOE and its contractors” and suggested poor oversight of contracts at DOE sites resulted in higher potential for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.
Threats to the Columbia River and Groundwater Contamination
The HAB has expressed the protection of the Columbia River to be the top priority of the cleanup process.28 As the largest river west of the Mississippi, the Columbia is the life source for wildlife, agriculture, and recreation throughout southern Washington and northern Oregon.4 There have been various instances of waste released into the river, both directly and indirectly (through groundwater contamination); even today, continued contamination of the Columbia remains a risk.2
During the early years of nuclear weapon production at Hanford, river contamination from Hanford primarily came from a “single pass cooling” system that was part of the engineering of the 8 original reactors at Hanford. Water from the Columbia River was used as a means of temperature control and was subsequently contaminated by the nuclear products.17 Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, river water was used and released back into the Columbia without proper safeguards, leading to the accumulation of radioactive waste in the plant and animal life of the region. River contamination eventually led to human exposure through ingestion of food as well as inhalation through evaporation.17
Although the single pass cooling system has been abandoned, Hanford continues to pose a contamination risk to the Columbia River via groundwater contamination, a relic of years of improper disposal of solid and liquid wastes on the site.29 Approximately 59 billion gallons of low-level wastes were directly discharged into the permeable soil until the 1970s.30 Through the 1980s and early 1990s, 450 billion gallons of untreated liquid waste were discharged into the soil.31 High-level wastes were held in underground storage tanks. As the capacity of these tanks reached its limit, even high-level waste was disposed directly into the soil. Recent studies have proven unfounded the assumption that waste would attach to soil particles and thus remain immobile, and waste from dump sites has now reached the groundwater in some areas.29
The other conduit of groundwater contamination is leaking storage tanks. By 1964, Hanford had 149 underground single shell storage tanks. These single shell storage tanks were designed to last only 10 to 20 years, and leakage of older tanks was evident by the late 1950s.32 In the late 1960s, Hanford engineers designed and built 28 double shell tanks with a 50-year life expectancy to help alleviate the risk from leaking single shell tanksby transferring some of the waste to the new tanks.31 Nonetheless, by 1989, 67 of the 149 single shell tanks were known or suspected to leak. DOE estimated that approximately 1 million gal of waste had already been released to the soil surrounding the tank farms.26
As more waste leaks into the soil over time, it sinks closer to the water table. Any waste that reaches the water table and contaminates the groundwater threatens the Columbia River, located 7 to 11 mi from the contamination site. The rate at which the waste from tanks is seeping into the groundwater and migrating to the Columbia River is unclear, and there is conflicting research on the subject.17 Although DOE continues its efforts to treat the groundwater, storage tanks continue to leak, perpetuating the cycle of contamination.
Contamination of the vadose zone, or the ground between the surface and the water table, presents a challenge to cleanup plans because contamination of this area is harder to measure and track, and technologies for effectively treating it have not yet been identified and standardized. Recent research suggests vadose vein contamination has the potential to reach the groundwater much faster than originally estimated by the DOE.2 Nonetheless, most cleanup plans call for vadose vein contamination from liquid tank discharges to remain in place.2
DOE has focused on long-term efforts to build a vitrification plant, which would transform liquid radioactive waste currently stored in tanks into stable glass “bricks.” Because of errors and oversight in the designing process, plant construction has suffered delays; it is not scheduled for operation until 2019. Even then, it will lack the capacity to treat all of the varieties of waste at Hanford.31 The prioritization of building the vitrification plant has diverted shorter-term cleanup projects such as building new, temporary double shell tanks. With almost no remaining space in the existing double shell tanks, efforts to remove liquid waste from potentially leaking single shell tanks have stalled.17
The prevalence of mixed waste throughout the Hanford site, including uncharacterized sludge inside tanks, adds a layer of complexity to regulation and treatment efforts. Radioactive portions of waste are regulated by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and DOE under the Atomic Energy Act, whereas other hazardous wastes are regulated by EPA under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Authority.33 Dual responsibility complicates oversight and accountability of cleanup.
Future Land-Use and Associated Risk Scenarios
The importance of the greater Columbia River basin, including areas downstream from the Hanford site, as active source of natural resources and a land guaranteed to regional Native American tribes through the Treaty of 1855, further complicates the scope of the cleanup efforts.34 Although the vadose zone and groundwater contamination from leaking tanks and other sources are primary factors in planning cleanup of these contaminated areas, future human exposure to shallow soils is another factor that must be considered when assessing whether risk scenarios and associated cleanup levels offer adequate protections for the public health. A white paper published jointly by the Washington Department of Ecology and EPA recognized ecological risk and future land uses to be essential considerations in the establishment of cleanup requirements at the Hanford site.35
Unfortunately, the vision of future land use at the Hanford site remains unclear. Regional Native American tribes continue to fight for a complete restoration of the site to contamination levels safe for open and unrestricted tribal uses at the Hanford site as guaranteed by the Treaty of 1855.36 Given the relatively high consumption of resources from traditional fishing and medicine gathering practices, tribes require strict cleanup standards. For example, 1 study conducted by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission showed that the average Native American using the Columbia River consumed approximately 9 times more fish than the average American.37 Because of a variety of factors, however, the extent to which increased exposure through this consumption may cause health effects is as yet unquantified. Nonetheless, increased exposure to a variety of potentially hazardous radionuclides, including arsenic-76, neptunium-239, phosphorus-32, sodium-24, and zinc-65, is unquestionable. Through various projects by the Office of Tribal Affairs in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, studies continue to provide information about these and other potential health effects to local tribes.2,7 Tribal leaders have incorporated detailed risk calculations based on typical consumption and use of tribal lands in the cleanup scenarios they have presented to DOE.38,39
An alternative to the tribally sanctioned scenarios is favored by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in which access is restricted and focuses on federal stewardship of the site. This alternative would allow for the conservation of the uniquely preserved shrub-steppe ecosystem and simultaneously protect the Hanford Reach National Monument, the only free flowing, nontidal stretch of the Columbia River. The alternative favored by local governments emphasizes the economic development potential of the Hanford site, including the possibility of agricultural and grazing activities.32 Studies indicating the impact of contamination of the Hanford site and impact area on Native Americans imply exposure risk to these general uses as well. Namely, the consumption of fish and use of water and agricultural land may present similar health risks under local government scenarios.
In the absence of a defined and mutually shared vision of land use, DOE continues to move forward with cleanup plans as per its own “preferred alternative.” The DOE preferred alternative anticipates manifold uses of the site, including industrial development related to future DOE missions. Ostensibly such missions could include research or activities related to nuclear security. The DOE preferred alternative explicitly rejects tribal visions and views of tribal members’ treaty rights and traditional tribal uses of Hanford lands and thus does not calculate the exposures that could occur if tribal reclamation of Hanford land proves successful in ongoing court challenges. DOE remediation at the Hanford site aims only to reduce human health risk to levels acceptable for the intended land uses35; thus, DOE designation of much of the Hanford site for “exclusive industrial use” or “industrial use” fails to consider potential exposures such as “inadvertent intruder” exposure, adult exposure to uncovered ground, child exposure scenarios, or tribal exposure scenarios.35 The failure of DOE to consider health risks for potential land uses other than its preferred alternative—even in the face of uncertainty about what land will actually be used for in the future—reflects DOE’s failure to deliver results along its stated theme of “protecting the environment by providing a responsible resolution to the environmental legacy of nuclear weapons production.”40
Although debates about how to best address public health risks associated with groundwater protection and remediation at the Hanford site are ongoing, the obligations of DOE are clear: According to Washington State law and the federal CERCLA statute (Superfund), cleanup levels must be based on the highest beneficial use of groundwater.41 All groundwater must be cleaned up to drinking water standards. However, as noted, failure to remediate the vadose zone at the Hanford site could threaten groundwater well into the future even if DOE meets CERCLA standards.
Washington State Initiative 297
On November 2, 2004, Washington State voters passed Initiative 297 by a vote of nearly 70 %.45 The initiative created a new law in Washington called the Cleanup Priority Act (Chapter 70.105E RCW). Initiative 297 required that existing waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation be brought into compliance and cleaned up before more radioactive or chemically dangerous waste could be imported or dumped at Hanford. The DOE’s Draft Tank Closure Waste Management environmental impact statement estimated that adding offsite waste would increase groundwater contamination cancer risk 10-fold over thousands of years, to levels 100 times of the Model Toxics Control Act allowable cancer risk standard.43 The federal government immediately filed a suit to overturn the initiative. The Washington State Attorney General’s Office defended Initiative 297 in multiple courts to support the state’s oversight of Hanford cleanup. However, in June 2006, US District Judge Alan McDonald ruled the initiative was unconstitutional, because it violates the prevailing federal authority over nuclear waste, as well as the constitution’s interstate commerce clause. In May 2008, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the ruling. The initiative remains overturned.
Hanford and Public Health Risks
Occupational Health and Safety
In 1986, 41 years after Hanford Nuclear Reservation opened and as a result of years of public pressure and Freedom of Information Act requests, DOE released thousands of pages of previously classified information documenting the radioactive contamination of air, soil, and water at Hanford. These documents demonstrated that a large number of workers and residents were exposed to dangerous radioactive elements during the Hanford site’s early years of production.44 Several studies were initiated to calculate the dose of radioactive exposure, including the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction (HEDR) project. The HEDR published findings that confirmed radiation exposure to residents during the 1940s and 1950s.44
In 1993, Congress added Section 3162 to the Defense Authorization Act, which mandates DOE to establish and administer a program to identify and provide medical evaluation for current and former DOE employees who are or were exposed to hazardous or radioactive substances during their employment. As a result of this mandate, DOE created medical surveillance programs for workers at nuclear sites, including Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, the Savannah River site in South Carolina, the Rocky Flats Site in Colorado, the nuclear test sites in Nevada and Alaska, and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington.45
These surveillance programs have yielded several studies regarding the health effects of exposure. The majority of the studies demonstrate evidence of significant risks to workers. In 1996, DOE contracted with the University of Washington Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program to conduct the Former Hanford Worker Medical Monitoring Program. Of the 91,525 surviving workers identified, 35,440 were estimated to be possibly repeatedly exposed to noise exceeding allowable thresholds, 27,988 people were possibly exposed to asbestos, and 16,654 people were possibly exposed to beryllium. This program resulted in 561 workers compensation claims related to asbestos, 90 beryllium claims, and 874 auditory claims.46
Dement examined mortality among 8,976 building trade workers who were formerly employed at the 4 nuclear sites, including Hanford, and participated in a medical screening program during 1998 to 2004.45 Follow-up of this cohort extended only through 2004, but revealed a significant excess of mortality for all cancers, lung cancer, mesothelioma, asbestosis, multiple myeloma (Hanford only), and non-Hodgkins lymphoma (Oak Ridge only). For this national DOE study, Hanford had 6 of the 8 cases of mesothelioma (asbestos related) and 5 of the 7 reported multiple myeloma cases (potentially radiation related) in the cohort.45
A larger cohort mortality study examined 26,389 workers who were employed specifically at Hanford during 1944 to 1978, in jobs with routine or nonroutine potential for plutonium exposure. Follow-up through 2004 revealed significantly increased risk of death from all cancers, cancer of tissues where plutonium deposits, and lung cancer, particularly for people employed at older ages.47
A case–control study of multiple myeloma (98 deaths) among people hired before 1979 at 1 of the 4 nuclear facilities (including Hanford) showed a significant dose-related association between low-level whole body–penetrating ionizing radiation dose at older ages and risk of multiple myeloma.48 These findings are consistent with the study by Dement et al. as well as an earlier cohort mortality study by Gilbert et al., who in 1993 reported an increased risk of multiple myeloma among former Hanford workers.49 Taken together, these studies present evidence of substantial health risks for Hanford and other nuclear workers.
Civilian Exposure Health of Downwinders
The airborne release of radioactive byproducts from Hanford exposed tens of thousands of people to radioactive iodine (I131), known to be strongly associated with cancer of the thyroid gland. Approximately 92% of I131 releases occurred between 1944 and 1947. During this time, an estimated 740,000 Curies of I131 were released into the air. In 1949, the US military intentionally released 8,000 curies in a planned experiment known as the “Green Run,” to measure how I131 spread through the environment, deliberately exposing civilians to radioactive material.15
Among non-Hanford workers, those most vulnerable to negative health outcomes resulting from exposure to airborne radioactivity are those living downwind from the site, especially children. Epidemiologic studies show that many people residing near Hanford received doses of I131 large enough to be harmful to their health.50 These findings are indicative of the dangers of nuclear weapon production for those living in the shadow of facilities such as Hanford. However, a large retrospective cohort study, the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study, tracked people exposed as children to the Hanford releases and found no conclusive evidence that childhood exposures to I131 increased the risk of thyroid disease, a disease commonly associated with radiation exposure.51,52 Many issues remain unresolved about the effects of the release of radioactive byproducts from Hanford, and more research is needed.
Hanford as a Model for National Cleanup
Hanford is the “flagship” Superfund site in the United States—the largest, most contaminated site in the country. The state of the site today was largely caused by federal policies and oversights, and Hanford remains a significant threat to public health and the environment. After years of DOE delays, it is time to renew a commitment to cleanup. DOE’s pattern of mismanagement, well documented by GAO, has endangered the health of workers and local residents for more than 4 decades. Given the failure of DOE to attend to public health and environmental risks and adequately manage cleanup since the site switched to cleanup only in 1987, APHA calls for policy and practice changes to protect the health and welfare of the public.
The action steps outlined in this resolution offer a model for hazardous waste cleanup that promotes clear and conservatively defined levels of acceptable cleanup standards, independent oversight, and prioritization of community and worker public health. If Hanford, the largest nuclear waste site in the nation, can be restored to a safe and habitable environment, this model for hazardous waste cleanup can be applied to other hazardous waste sites.
Action Steps
To ensure clean up of the nuclear waste at Hanford is adequate to safeguard the public’s health APHA—
- Reasserts that the cleanup of nuclear waste sites is a public health priority. Awareness among public health professionals must be increased regarding the extent of public health threats at Hanford and all nuclear waste sites to promote stronger public health policy to support comprehensive and sufficient cleanup.
- Urges the expansion of the body of independent public health research on current and future health risks from Hanford and supports comprehensive research on radiation and chemical exposure to workers, long-term low-dose exposures to the public, the environmental effects of groundwater and river contamination, and the risks of potential exposure that will guide future land use decisions.
- Calls for reasonable and effective external oversight of Hanford cleanup efforts. Such oversight should mandate cleanup to focus on the completion of remediation and require that development of exposure scenarios consider both ecological risk and the prospect of less-restrictive land uses in the future.
- Asserts that no new waste should be brought to and stored at the Hanford site until the site is cleaned. After complete clean up, waste should be stored at Hanford only if the health and environmental impacts have been properly characterized, quantified, and mitigated.
- Call for DOE to formally incorporate tribal exposure scenarios and cleanup standards into the Hanford cleanup plan. The historical rights of local tribes to unrestricted use of the Hanford region and the greater Columbia River Basin are guaranteed by the Treaty of 1855; therefore, cleanup efforts must prioritize the restoration of soil, groundwater, and the Columbia River to levels at which natural products such as fish, crops, wild plants, and livestock contain acceptably low levels of Hanford-derived contaminants.
References
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2. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Public Health Assessment for the Hanford Site. Richland, Wash; October 16, 2006.
3. Committee on the Review of the Hanford Site’s Environmental Remediation Science and Technology Plan, Board on Radioactive Waste Management. Science and Technology for Environmental Cleanup at Hanford. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 2001.
4. Oregon Department of Energy. Hanford Cleanup: The First 20 Years. 2009. Available at: www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/NUCSAF/docs/HanfordFirst20years.pdf?ga=t. Accessed January 26, 2011.
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21. Grossman D. A Policy History of Hanford’s Atmospheric Releases. Citation of Report of Safety and Industrial Health Advisory Board. Cambridge, Mass: Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 1994.
22. US Department of Energy. Origins & Evolution of the Department of Energy. Available at www.energy.gov/about/origins.htm. Accessed January 24, 2010.
23. US Environmental Protection Agency. Hanford. Accessed October 27, 2009.
24. US Department of Energy. Operational History of Waste Disposal at the Hanford Site. Rev. 0 GW/VZ Integration Project Background Information and State of Knowledge. DOE/RL-98-48, Vol. II; June 30, 1999. Available at: www.hanford.gov/docs/gpp/library/gwvz/98-48-V2text.pdf. Accessed January 26, 2011.
25. US Department of Energy. Hanford: Tri-Party Agreement. Available at: www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/TriParty. Accessed February 16, 2010.
26. US Department of Energy, Office of River Protection. The Accelerated Retrieval, Treatment, and Disposal of Tank Waste and Closure of Tanks at the Hanford Site Environmental Impact Statement: A Guide to Understanding the Issues. January 2003. RPP-14193. p. 7.
27. US Government Accountability Office. Nuclear Waste: DOE’s Environmental Management Initiatives Report Is Incomplete. Available at: www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09–697R. Accessed January 22, 2010
28. Hanford Advisory Board. Consensus Advice #6, November 1994. Available at: www.hanford.gov/files.cfm/HAB_Advice06.pdf. Accessed February 16, 2010.
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