Our guest speaker on Friday, May 22nd was Ginger Wireman, a Community Outreach & Environmental Education Specialist with the Washington State Department of Ecology. After the presentation Ginger asked if the club members could fill out a evaluation form: Here is the link: http://biy.ly/3eebLgX.
Ginger's presentation was about the Hanford Site Cleanup: Progress & Challenges. Like so many of the workforce in Washington and the nation, Ginger has been working from home since March 13th. Ginger started the presentation with some background regarding the Hanford site. Area pre-1942 was a small agricultural community comprising Hanford and White Bluffs. Native Americans had been in the area for years. A photo in the presentation shows the Wanapum village looking downstream towards Hanford. Construction at Hanford began in the 1940's. Production was from 1945-1988. Hanford was part of the Manhattan project. The project needed a rural area and required established rail lines. The project took all of the farms and buildings to construct Hanford. No one had a clue that the site/project was part of the building and deployment of the hydrogen bomb dubbed the Manhattan Project.
Building the largest project at Hanford with no OSHA and L&I established at the time was complex due to the worst of the waste being stored in underground tanks. There were 177 tanks in all with a 145 being single lined tanks. Cleanup started in 1989 with a Tri-Party agreement providing the legal framework for how the various agencies would work together on the cleanup and timeframe.
RCRA gives Washington the authority to issue permits for: management of dangerous and mixed wastes; cleanup of spills, leaks and other contamination issues that are (non-RAD). Ecology permit outlines conditions for treatment, storage and disposal of chemically hazardous waste. The cleanup started in the 1990's. The clean up projects involves 2,300 waste management units/areas of concern; 80 miles of contaminated groundwater; 56 million gallons of waste in 177 underground tanks and contaminated soil and buildings.
The clean up challenges (policy) are the Federal budget of $114 billion dollars and what is the risk reduction per dollars spent and where does Hanford rank verses other priorities. It also involved a Tribal treaty obligation with three tribes and the question of "why" is it taking so long? The presentation discussed the cleanup work that is done; and where does the waste go and the biggest question is the protection of the Columbia River. Complete groundwater remediation along the Columbia River required by 2024.
There is so much more that Ginger talked about that could be part of an extended presentation in the near future. Following her presentation there was a brief Q & A session by members regarding the Hanford project.