Looking for signs of contamination in Hanford-area fish

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http://www.tri-cityherald.com/kennewick_pasco_richland/story/675620.html


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To make final plans for the environmental cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation, the Department of Energy and its regulators need to know more about the extent of contamination in the Columbia River.

That requires checking hundreds of fish, in part to assess their condition, but chiefly to test for any Hanford chemicals or radionuclides that could harm anyone eating those fish.

Someone has to catch the fish. And Environmental Assessment Services of Richland has been given that dirty job.

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Labs under contract to Washington Closure Hanford will check for a wide variety of contaminants that might be linked to the past production of plutonium at Hanford for the nation's nuclear weapons program. Those include isotopes of plutonium and uranium, metals and PCBs.

The Washington State Department of Health has been hired to do quality assurance work for the study, and could choose to send some of the samples to be tested independently. Previous sampling has been done and has not led the Department of Health to issue any warnings specifically for fish caught near Hanford.

But this study, the most comprehensive conducted related to fish and Hanford, should provide more complete information. In addition to fish, assessment of the river also includes sampling of river water, soil on Hanford islands and sediment from the river.

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DOE is working to have most environmental cleanup along the river completed by 2015.
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