In a journalistic drone strike gone horribly wrong, news outlets across the country ran images of a nuclear power plant last Saturday with their reports on a leaking underground radioactive nuclear weapons waste tank at the Government?s nuclear reservation many miles away. Everyone from the New York?s The Daily News to TV stations in Portland, Oregon seem to forget that nuclear weapons production from 60 years ago has nothing to do with a nuclear power plant today.
B-roll photos of Washington State?s only commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, were used as the main image about a completely unrelated leaking waste tank that was built in 1944 at the Department of Energy?s Hanford Site (KXLY Spokane).
The tank contains waste left over from making nuclear bombs during and after World War II. The only thing the power plant did was lease the land from the U. S. Department of Energy.
Let me clarify the science behind this issue:
Nuclear Bombs ? Bad!
Nuclear Energy ? Good!
The icky sludge and saltcake generated from making weapons is nothing like fuel from a power reactor. The Daily News did pull the photo when it was pointed out to them that the photo had nothing to do with the story, but few seem to care. Scientific accuracy doesn?t appear necessary when reporting on nuclear issues.
The only news outlet to get the story, and the image, correct was the Tri-City Herald in Washington State, but then they know the nuclear issues very well and almost always gets them right (Tri-City Herald).
Slowly, outlets appear to be pulling the reports, but the damage is done. Another victory for ignorance!
Can you tell which of these pictures is of huge underground storage tanks filled with millioins of gallons of sludge and saltcake that is constantly monitored for activity, and which is of a nuclear power plant? Hint: the one with the steam turning turbines is not the waste tank. Bottom left -tank farm under construction. Top left ? inside a tank leaking from sludge and saltcake dewatering. Top right ? Waste tank farm being monitored. Bottom right ? nuclear power plant Courtesy of DOE and Columbia Generating Station.
The other thing that was misreported is that these leaking tanks hold high-level radioactive waste (HLW), which is not true.? They contain another, much less radioactive waste called transuranic waste (TRU waste) that is thousands of times less radioactive than high-level waste.? I?ve actually held this waste in my hand, so I?m not too impressed.
But everyone can be forgiven since only a few of us science geeks know the difference.
Although hundreds of gallons of this leaking water might be leaking from a tank each year, the 100 billion gallons of volume between it and the river won?t be much affected. The environmental impact is not even measurable and there won?t be any discernable effects on public health ? ever (Environmental Impact Statement DOE/EIS-0391). If all of this leakage reaches the river it will have less of an affect than if you moved to Colorado.
Terrible, I know.
Yes, we need to clean this up. Yes, we need to get this waste in the right geology where it can?t get out for a billion years. And yes, we know exactly how to do this and where to put it (Chris Helman ? Nuke Town).
We just need to be allowed to get on with it.
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