Nuclear sludge at Washington state site put in safer storage
SPOKANE — After 19 years of work to safeguard nuclear waste dating from the Cold War, workers at a sprawling Washington state site have managed to remove virtually all of the radioactive waste from 16 aging underground steel tanks at risk of leaking.
The sludge left over from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons was transferred from the old single walled tanks into modern double wall tanks that are considered much safer, the U.S. Department of Energy said in a statement provided to The Associated Press Monday.
While the event is regarded as a major milestone for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the waste removed came from only one of the facility’s 12 tank farms containing radioactive waste.
A government contractor is in the final stages of removing waste from one of the tanks, which has a capacity of 530,000 gallons (2 million liters), the energy department said. It has stored waste since 1947 and officials suspect it has been leaking.
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