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As a result, a class-action suit was filed in 1991 by 2,400 individuals—"downwinders"— who claimed they had developed thyroid cancer after being exposed to radioactive iodine-131 emissions from Hanford.

Many of these tanks are already leaking, and have been for some time; according to the Washington Department of Ecology's estimate, one million gallons of nuclear waste have already poisoned groundwater as it continues to seep toward the Columbia River. However, it is not only leaks that haunt Hanford's scientists and engineers. The longer the waste stays put, the more dangerous it becomes.

"In the extreme," says Alexander, "this could lead to a serious condition that remains undiscovered until it is too late and another Mayak-scale incident occurs."

Department of Energy scientists allege catastrophic mismanagement of the costliest environmental cleanup in world history.

During Hanford's lifespan, 475 billion gallons of radioactive wastewater were released into the ground. Radioactive isotopes have made their way up the food chain in the Hanford ecosystem at an alarming rate. Coyote excrement frequently lights up Geigers, as these scavengers feast on varmints that live beneath the earth's surface. Deer also have nuclear radiation accumulating in their bones as a result of consuming local shrubbery and water.

The EPA has deemed Hanford the most contaminated site in North America—a jarring fact, as the Columbia River, lifeline for more than 10,000 farmers and dozens of commercial fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, surges along Hanford's eastern boundary.

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy was sued Friday by state utility regulators who challenge whether consumers should continue paying into a $30 billion government nuclear waste fund if a Yucca Mountain repository is no longer in the plans.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, or NARUC, asked judges to suspend collection of the fees until a new review of whether the money still is needed.

President Barack Obama has moved to terminate the behind-schedule Yucca Mountain storage project in Nevada, and has formed a blue ribbon panel to study alternatives and report within two years.

The federal government did an analysis of the damage to determine if capping and sealing off the waste would stop more of it from getting out, and also, if more waste could be imported to the site to be buried along with the original waste. The analysis also shows that the U.S. energy department's plan to import low-level and midlevel radioactive waste from other sites to Hanford after 2022 poses "completely unacceptable" risks, [assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy Ken] Niles said. Washington is also raising concerns about importing more waste. […] Health risks from Hanford's contamination are long-term, not immediate. They're expressed in terms of cancer cases after a lifetime of drinking well water from the site, with a one in 10,000 risk considered high. But many of the contaminant levels at the site exceed health benchmarks by wide margins.

There wasn't much of a Yucca Mountain-type plan here, as the Oregonian states, “Some of the waste was dumped directly into ditches, some was buried in drums and some was stored in 177 huge underground tanks, including 149 leak-prone single-walled tanks.”

Some radioactive contaminants at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will threaten the Columbia River for thousands of years, a new analysis projects, despite the multibillion-dollar cleanup efforts by the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Energy projections come from a new analysis of how best to clean up leaking storage tanks and manage waste at Hanford, a former nuclear weapons production site on 586 square miles next to the Columbia in southeastern Washington.

Oregon officials say the results, including contamination projections for the next 10,000 years, indicate the federal government needs to clean up more of the waste that has already leaked and spilled at Hanford instead of capping and leaving it, a less-expensive alternative.

Following is an excerpt from the Government Accountability Office's description of the chronology of efforts in this direction:

Nuclear energy, which supplied about 20 percent of the nation’s electric power in 2010, offers a domestic source of energy with low emissions but also presents difficulties — including what to do with nuclear fuel after it has been used and removed from commercial power reactors. This material, known as spent nuclear fuel, is highly radioactive and considered one of the most hazardous substances on earth. The current national inventory of nearly 65,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel is stored at 75 sites in 33 states and increases by about 2,000 metric tons each year.

In June 2008, DOE submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking authorization to construct a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain. NRC has regulatory authority to authorize construction of the repository. DOE planned to open the repository in 2017, but later delayed the date to 2020.