People living near former atomic weapon plant in WA have increased cancer rates | Hacker News Reader

People living near former atomic weapon plant in WA have increased cancer rates

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

85 pointsgrecy26 comments

The Hanford site is one of the most polluted places in the country, due to the plutonium production reactors and processing facilities which dumped open waste years before environmental concerns were on the table. They also ran production reactor water straight out into the river and contaminated areas downstream.

The authoritative book on Hanford[0] is published by the DOE. Another excellent book on Hanford and its "sister city" in Russia is Plutopia[1].

[0] https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc737111/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutopia

And, IIRC, sprayed radioactive water on the soil. Which then had to all be scraped up and put in barrels making the contamination worse. <facepalm>

Anywhere associated with Plutonium processing is a disaster area in the US.

See also: NUMEC contamination in Pennsylvania https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/23/what-lies-beneath-numec...

Yikes.

I’m hopeful for the future but knowing how Uber capitalists work (I consider myself a capitalist too fwiw) it worries me that we will see worse disasters when private companies everywhere doing nuclear shit.

In addition to the points that the other commenters raised, generally externalities such as pollution are worse when the entity creating the externality does not have to worry about paying for it.

This is why authoritarian governments are especially bad at polluting. Democratic governments are second-worst, since although they may be questioned and legally challenged, governments like to carve out a lot of exceptions for themselves (see things like the Kirtland AFB water pollution). Capitalists, with the power of limited liability behind them, are third-worst, but through careful management of incentives and regulations government can mitigate the issue better than it can mitigate itself.

Luckily all nuclear waste is now under the purview of the Department of Energy.

Pollution in USSR was something else. It’s not capitalism it’s a general resources problem.

The Mayak plant, which basically is the Soviet Hanford, neglected any environmental concerns and was the place of the second-worst nuclear incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster

>Initially Mayak dumped high-level radioactive waste into a nearby river, which flowed to the river Ob, flowing farther downstream to the Arctic Ocean. All six reactors were on Lake Kyzyltash and used an open-cycle cooling system, discharging contaminated water directly back into the lake. When Lake Kyzyltash quickly became contaminated, Lake Karachay was used for open-air storage, keeping the contamination a slight distance from the reactors but soon making Lake Karachay the "most-polluted spot on Earth".

Nothing to see here, just glowing, flickering radiation clouds.

> After the explosion, a column of smoke and dust rose to a kilometer high, the dust flickered with an orange-red light and settled on buildings and people.

In the former GDR(DDR), too[0]

[0] https://apnews.com/article/b771e863afa629be5139b65784b21aba

> Uber capitalists

The government did at least most of the polluting. They contracted the cleanup to private companies.

This is a 20 year old study based on 30-70 year old data. Has a Hanford employee myself, I can certify that safety standards at the Hanford site are orders of magnitude higher now than they were in the early days.

Doesn't Hanford still have some leaking holding tanks on site? There was supposed to be concern about the waste making it into the water table or Columbia IIRC.

Might not want to disclose you work there.

Thousands of people work there.

Touring Hanford, if you can get a slot, is quite the experience

https://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/

I lived in Richland (near Hanford) and worked near the facility in an IT contractor position. The mess there is truly awful; they were in such a hurry when they were building the bombs that they basically just threw anything contaminated into huge concrete tanks to worry about later. Those old single-wall tanks are now leaking huge plumes of waste into the Columbia River [1].

The current plan for dealing with much of this waste -- and I am NOT making this up -- is to turn it into GIANT GLASS LOGS. [2]

[1] https://ecology.wa.gov/Waste-Toxics/Nuclear-waste/Hanford-cl...

[2] https://www.hanfordvitplant.com/

> Those old single-wall tanks are now leaking huge plumes of waste into the Columbia River [1].

Doesn't that link refute your claim, not support it? They specifically answer the question of river contamination by saying it might happen in about 70 years.

Hey there, we used to live there too. My dad worked at PNNL on nuclear waste management

This is not new information. There have been massive lawsuits going on for decades. The area is a regional medical hub centered around cancer treatment. It's not just a superfund site, it's four superfund sites. An 801 person study seems superfluous, but I guess more data is more data.

I spent a few wonderful days there in 1999 at a UAV competition. The site is epic. So many warning signs and weird concrete bunkers dotted across the landscape. It’s frankly amazing that there hasn’t been MORE cancer…

I live in Coeur d'Alene, ID. Downwind from Hanford [1](I heard stories some of the test balloons landed nearby, as well as up to Nelson, BC).

Also, downstream from the Silver Valley [2]

The Pacific Northwest also has a higher rate of MS (3x) than the rest of the country. [3]

While we are at it lets not forget about Umatilla, 60 miles SE of Hanford, as well, and what goes on there (although my understanding is it is well controlled). [4]

I wonder if this was better known...would the property values here have doubled in the last 3 years?

[1] https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/voices/oral-histories/richard-... [2] https://www.deq.idaho.gov/waste-management-and-remediation/m... [3] https://www.kuow.org/stories/search-cause-high-rates-ms-nort... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umatilla_Chemical_Depot

pdf: https://sci-hub.ru/10.3200/AEOH.58.5.267-274

my mom was born in moses lake in the mid-50s, 50 or 60 miles northeast of the hanford site; incidentally she has had lifelong thyroid disease

Green run.

hadn't heard about this, thanks for the tip

Sounds like what happened near me (https://www.atomichomefront.film/).

The US Navy and the US Marine Corps bombed an area on the island of Vieques for training exercises.

In 1999, there were protests to get them to stop, clean, and leave.

This is part of what the EPA has identified as contaminants,

> After the base was closed, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderon requested Vieques be placed on the U.S. National Priorities List as a designated superfund clean-up site. As of 2014 the EPA has listed the following contaminants and ordnances at the western portion of the naval station: unexploded ordnance UXO, remnants of exploded ordnance, mercury, lead, copper, magnesium, lithium, napalm, depleted uranium along with other unspecified materials. In addition to these, the eastern portion of the site "may also include" polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), solvents and pesticides.

And to give an idea on the level,

> As of 2014, the Navy has spent about $220 million since 2003, to investigate and clean contaminated lands on Vieques. Since 2007, about half of the money budgeted for munitions removal has been awarded to 23 local companies in Puerto Rico.[6] As of 2014, "the Navy spends more money each year to clean up Vieques than it is spending to clean up any other former Navy installation in the US".[6]

Quotes above from here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_Vieques,...

From this article, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/30/vieques-puerto...

> Though no official cause has been determined, studies have found unusually high concentrations of toxic metals like mercury, uranium, and arsenic in viequenses’ hair and urine.

and

> Shortly before the navy’s departure, Carmen Ortiz Roque, a Puerto Rico epidemiologist who studied Vieques for years, found residents there were 30% likelier to die from cancer than other Puerto Ricans, with significantly higher rates of heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, and infant mortality. Another analysis found Vieques islanders over 50 are as much as 280% more likely to have lung cancer than other Puerto Ricans. “The human population of Vieques is by far the sickest human population that I’ve ever worked with,” Ortiz Roque said.

This was over 23 years ago and still isn't clean. Trainings were done with live munitions. The whole area is still contaminated.

It's a beautiful island. The people are great. But they're living in this mess that the government still hasn't cleaned up.

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