Nukewatch Winter Quarterly 2019-2020
The ongoing attempt to clean up vast amounts of nuclear weapons production waste at the Hanford Reservation in Washington State was put on hold again following the 8th case of worker exposure this year. Work was stopped Nov. 14 when contamination was found on an employee’s skin and clothing as he was leaving the “324 building” area, one of the most contaminated sites on the 570 square mile compound. “DOE officials have said the contamination beneath the building is so radioactive that it would be fatal within a few minutes of human contact,” the Tri-City Herald reported. According to Ty Blackford, president of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., at Hanford, “The employee was easily decontaminated using standard techniques,” the Herald reported. The 324 building is a mere 300 yards from the Columbia River, a drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of people. The 324 building “sits over a leak of radioactive cesium and strontium into the soil beneath it,” the Herald reported, and the AP said that the Energy Department intends to push on with demolition of the structure. —Tri-City Herald, Associated Press, and KNDO TV, Nov. 20, 2019
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