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December 4, 2009

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Letter: Hanford waste is more urgent problem for DOE

Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

Let's switch perspective for just a minute.

Everybody's focused on spent-fuel rods going to Yucca Mountain, but let's consider instead vitrified tank wastes from Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Such wastes are not as dangerous as spent fuel, and many of the 293 scientific questions given to the Energy Department would not apply if the mountain were to house vitrified wastes. Perhaps that is why the agency has been in no hurry to answer the questions.

Sixty-four tanks at Hanford are leaking profusely. Liquid levels in several tanks are below the gauges. More than a million gallons have leaked into the soil in Richland, Wash. More than 280,000 signatures were collected to put a stop to any more waste coming to Richland. Those people are fed up, and the Energy Department has to do something.

It's quite possible spent-fuel rods will have to take a back seat.

RON BOURGOIN Rocky Mount, N.C. Editor's note: Ron Bourgoin was a consultant to the town of Rolesville in Wake County, N.C., in 1984 when a site in that area was being considered by the Energy Department as the location for a high-level nuclear waste repository.

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