Just another reason why uranium isn’t the way to go, it costs the taxpayer way too much money for what he receives.

Take the former Fernald Feed Materials Production Center at Fernald, Ohio, that’s about 20 miles northwest of Cincinnati.  The former uranium processing site opened in complete secrecy during the Cold War in 1951.  The plant fabricated uranium fuel cores for the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex until 1989, when it shut the doors.

Releases from the plant exposed residents of the small community of Fernald to radon, soluble and insoluble forms of uranium and various chemicals, both in groundwater and from blowing dust.  The health consequences to residents and former workers are still being evaluated.

True, the Cold War was settled peacefully, with jangled nerves and a plethora of nuclear weapons as a threat to total annihilation of anyone who attacks our shores.  But the taxpayers who worked at and lived near the plant were exposed to dangerous elements, as described above.  Some payoff, especially for the 50 years it took to get the mess cleaned up.

How much did it cost, you ask?  Well, the Energy Department has finished the removal of 1.5 million tons of waste at a cost of $4.4 billion.  And, after 22 years, remember that number, 22 years, the feds have agreed to pay $13.7 million settlement over contaminated ground water at the site.

True, this isn’t about a nuclear power generating station, it’s about nuclear energy and the stuff that makes it run, uranium.  Once disturbed from it’s natural state, entered into the mainstream of American life, it can be dangerous at best.

Don’t forget, this is only one of maybe a hundred or more sites where mighty uranium has been mined, processed, fabricated or used in some way that has yet to be cleaned up and restored.  Nuclear isn’t clean, it’s dirty, invasive and dangerous, but we’ve got it and there’s no way to change it.

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Image:   www.lm.doe.gov/…/ fernald_orig/Future/flu.htm

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Of those 177, sixty-seven are confirmed leakers, meaning their contents are leaching into the soil and headed toward the Columbia River. Most have exceeded their anticipated 50 year life span, creating fear of a catastrophic tank failure.

Thousands of tons of radioactive and hazardous waste has been buried in unlined landfills and 450 billion gallons of liquid waste has been poured into ponds, ditches and drainfields at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the state of Washington.

These figures come from an article in today’s Washington Post, which I don’t intend to re-write. My purpose is only to call your attention to this article and hope you will read it and sense the gravity of the situation in that state.

More than a million people living downstream from Hanford are being threatened by a huge plume of groundwater contaminated with radiation and heavy metals moving their way.

The Bush administration’s proposed cleanup budget has trimmed $800 million from cleanup funding, and increased funding for nearly all other categories in the government’s nuclear program.

And they want to mine more uranium, build more nuclear power plants and pile up more spent radioactive material with no where to go, but possibly our drinking water and riding along with that breeze we inhale.

If you’d like to review some Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports on nuclear issues, I suggest you start with these eye openers.

• GAO report on the Hanford facility as recent as Jan 22, 2008.
• GAO reports on nuclear cleanup issues as recent as Nov 15,2007.
• GAO reports on hazardous waste issues as recent as Nov 13, 2007.
• GAO reports on uranium mining cleanup as recent as Oct 26, 2007.

You may find some duplicity in the reports, but there’s plenty of information to keep the interested person quite busy.