Comments of Heart of America Northwest, Heart of America Northwest Research Center on Revised Draft Hanford Solid (Radioactive and Hazardous) Waste Program Environmental Impact Statement (RD-HSWEIS)

In 2000, USDOE imported 232,000 cubic feet of radioactive wastes to Hanford and dumped them in unlined soil trenches with no leachate collection and without legally compliant groundwater or soil column monitoring systems. This was enough waste to cover two football fields in radioactive wastes to a height that would bury a six and a half foot tall player in radioactive waste. We call for USDOE to end dumping in unlined trenches by December, 31, 2003. It can and must be done. USDOE proposes, on the contrary, to keep using unlined soil trenches indefinitely and to formally designate Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump after issuing a final version of this EIS. Here is a summary of some of the decisions that USDOE plans to issue as soon as the new version of the Hanford Solid Waste EIS is finalized. These decisions will be made in one or more “Record of Decisions”, for which USDOE managers have said that the Assistant Secretary of Energy has set a deadline of July 31, 2003 to have issued. This research was completed money allocated during Round 3 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at digitalrepository@clarku.eduhttps://commons.clarku.edu/heartofam/1001/thumbnail.jp