Video shows workers at Hanford illegally dumping radioactive water

Photo © Berliner Verlag / Steinach / Global Look Press

Investigators are looking into the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state, after contractors were filmed dumping radiation-affected water and later tried to bury the evidence at the site of one of the largest nuclear cleanup efforts in the world.

Several videos obtained by Seattle’s KING-TV show workers at the Hanford¹ facility’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) dumping liquids from large metal containers that are labeled “Caution: radioactive materials.”

“In nearly 25 years of working here I’ve never seen anything like that,” a Hanford worker told KING. The workers are employed by Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the organization responsible for cleaning approximately 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive and chemical waste stored in the containers at Hanford. The facility dates back to the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. For decades, it produced the majority of the plutonium for the US nuclear weapons arsenal.

In 1988, production stopped and the site became a burying ground for radioactive waste. Hanford has since become the most contaminated spot in the Western Hemisphere, prompting a multi-billion dollar clean-up process that isn’t expected to be completed until 2060. “The soils under Hanford are […]

Full article: Video shows workers at Hanford illegally dumping radioactive water

* Wikipedia lists these various names for the Hanford Site: Hanford Project, Hanford Works, Hanford Engineer Works, and Hanford Nuclear Reservation. —Ed. of h2oIQ.org