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Workers who relocated the material fell ill simply from inhaling the fumes, Carpenter said. Department of Energy officials said none of the material has leaked outside the outer steel wall or the concrete casing that surrounds the structure, and there is no present hazard to workers or groundwater. They said they were trying to determine whether the material leaked from the inner tank or oozed from a nearby pit into the space between the two walls, known as the annulus. "There's no evidence of it leaking the liquid from the inner shell right now," Gamache said. The material – a mound 2 feet by 3 feet by 8 inches -- is dry and doesn't appear to be growing. It was discovered during a routine video inspection of the annulus conducted last month from a viewpoint not normally used. The possibility that it could have come as overflow from a nearby pit arises because a pipe runs into the annulus from the pit, Gamache said.

But Carpenter, who has talked extensively with workers at Hanford and was briefed Tuesday by one of the Department of Energy's senior officials at the tank farm, said he believed the evidence was strong that there was a leak. "I know Hanford would like it not to be so. But the people I'm talking to at the Hanford site say, no, it really does look like a leak," he said.

"From what I'm being told and looking at the pictures, it appears it's coming from under the tank and going up. Which is a far cry from it coming from the pit." Gamache said an initial sample of the material revealed that "the contamination levels were higher than expected" and it definitely contained radioactive waste. "There wasn't enough material to fully characterize the material, so we're preparing to pull another sample. That will probably happen around the mid-September time frame," she said. Carpenter said that if the inner tank leaked, it would probably prompt the need to reevaluate expectations that the tanks could safely act as interim storage vessels for several decades.

The "design-build" approach "is good if you're building a McDonald's," said Gene Aloise, the GAO's director of nuclear non-proliferation and security. "It's not good if you're building a one-of-a-kind, high-risk nuclear waste facility."The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent federal panel that oversees public health and safety at nuclear weapons sites, is urging Energy Secretary Steven Chu to require more extensive testing of designs for some of the plant's most critical components."Design and construction of the project continue despite there being unresolved technical issues, and there is a lot of risk associated with that," said Peter Winokur, the board's chairman. The waste at Hanford, stored in 177 deteriorating underground tanks, "is a real risk to the public and the environment. It is essential that this plant work and work well."

Documents obtained by USA TODAY show at least three federal investigations are underway to examine the project, which is funded and supervised by the Department of Energy, owner of Hanford Site. Bechtel National is the prime contractor.In November, the Energy Department's independent oversight office notified Bechtel that it is investigating "potential nuclear safety non-compliances" in the design and installation of plant systems and components. And the department's inspector general is in the final stages of a separate probe focused on whether Bechtel installed critical equipment that didn't meet quality-control standards.Meanwhile, Congress' Government Accountability Office has launched a sweeping review of everything from cost and schedule overruns to the risks associated with the Energy Department's decision to proceed with construction before completing and verifying the design of key components.

Everything about the waste treatment plant at Hanford is unprecedented — and urgent.The volume of waste, its complex mix of highly radioactive and toxic material, the size of the processing facilities — all present technical challenges with no proven solution. The plant is as big as the task: a sprawling, 65-acre compound of four giant buildings, each longer than a football field and as tall as 12 stories high.The plant will separate the waste's high- and low-level radioactive materials, then blend them with compounds that are superheated to create a molten glass composite — a process called "vitrification." The mix is poured into giant steel cylinders, where it cools to a solid form that is safe and stable for long-term storage — tens of thousands of glass tubes in steel coffins.

Once the plant starts running, it could take 30 years or more to finish its cleanup work.The 177 underground tanks at Hanford hold detritus from 45 years of plutonium production at the site, which had up to nine nuclear reactors before it closed in 1989. Some of the tanks, with capacities ranging from 55,000 gallons to more than 1 million gallons, date to the mid-1940s, when Hanford's earliest reactor made plutonium for the first atomic bomb ever detonated: the "Trinity" test at Alamagordo, N.M. It also produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II.

More than 60 of the tanks are thought to have leaked, losing a million gallons of waste into soil and groundwater. So far, the contamination remains within the boundaries of the barren, 586-square-mile site, but it poses an ongoing threat to the nearby Columbia River, a water source for communities stretching southwest to Portland, Ore. And, while the liquid most likely to escape from the older tanks has been moved to newer, double-walled tanks, the risk of more leaks compounds that threat.

The system can process 50 tonnes of water per hour. During the one week that ended on July 12, however, the rate was 37 tonnes per hour. TEPCO stopped the system at 5:14AM on July 15 to expel the air out of the pipes and restarted the system at 2:21PM, but the operating rate still remains at 39 tonnes per hour.

As the result, the amount of treated water in the storage tank has dropped to 35% of the full capacity, so TEPCO replenished the tank with 570 tonnes of river water to bring it to 63% capacity. If outside water is added, the contaminated water will increase.

Let's see..63 minus 35 equals 28.570 tonnes equal 28% of the capacity.So the tank holds 2,035 tonnes.Hmmm, the number doesn't match up with the information on TEPCO's drawing, which shows the storage tank to have the capacity of 5,000 tonnes and the buffer tank that can mix river water with contaminated water if needed has only 1,000 tonnes capacity. There is no tank with 2,000 tonnes capacity in the drawing...

The amount of groundwater into the buildings fluctuates with the rainfall. At the end of September when it rained heavily because of a typhoon, the amount of ground water doubled, and about 7,700 tonnes of water seeped into the buildings in that week.

The groundwater would mix with the contaminated water in the basement of the buildings, and this highly contaminated water is being sent to the water treatment facility. After the density of radioactive materials in the water is lowered and salt removed, the treated water is being used for cooling the reactors.

When the circulatory water injection and cooling system started in late June, there were 127,000 tonnes of contaminated water (highly contaminated water plus the treated water with low contamination). However, as the result of the groundwater inflow, there are now 175,000 tonnes of contaminated water, a 40% increase, as of October 18. None of the water could be released outside the plant.

Concentrated, highly saline waste water after the desalination process is stored in the special tanks. As more water is processed, more tanks are needed. TEPCO is installing 20,000 tonnes storage tanks every month. To secure the space for the tanks the company has been cutting down the trees in the plant compound. There is a system to evaporate water to reduce the amount of waste water, but it is not currently used.

The water level in the turbine buildings where the highly contaminated water after the reactor cooling accumulates is 1 meter below the level at which there is a danger of overflowing. It is not the level that would cause immediate overflow after a heavy rain. However, if the heavy rain is coupled with a trouble at the water treatment system that hampers the water circulation, the water level could rise very rapidly.

The treatment capacity of the water treatment facility is 1,400 tonnes per day. TEPCO emphasizes that the facility is running smoothly and the circulatory water injection system is stable. However, if the current situation continues where groundwater keeps coming into the buildings that needs to be treated, the water treatment facility will be taxed with excess load, which may cause a problem.

It is difficult to stop the inflow of groundwater completely, and TEPCO is not planning any countermeasure construction. Regarding the continued inflow of groundwater into the buildings, TEPCO's Junichi Matsumoto says, "We have to come up with a more compact water treatment system in which we can circulate water without using the basements of the buildings. Otherwise we would be stuck in a situation where we have to treat the groundwater coming into the basements." However, there is no prospect of fundamentally solving the problem.And there will be no such prospect, as TEPCO is now proven to be very good at looking the other way. Over 10 sieverts/hour ultra-hot spot? Not a problem, we will just cordon off the area. What is causing 10 sieverts/hour radiation? Why it's not our problem. How much over 10 sieverts/hour? We don't know because we don't measure such things. High hydrogen concentration in the pipe? Not a problem, we will just blow nitrogen gas. What is causing the high hydrogen concentration? It's not our problem. A worker died after 1 week of work at the plant. Why? It's not our problem, it's the subcontractor's problem...

Any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how slight, boosts cancer risk, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Federal regulators set a limit for how much tritium is allowed in drinking water, where this contaminant poses its main health risk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says tritium should measure no more than 20,000 picocuries per liter in drinking water. The agency estimates seven of 200,000 people who drink such water for decades would develop cancer.

The tritium leaks also have spurred doubts among independent engineers about the reliability of emergency safety systems at the 104 nuclear reactors situated on the 65 sites. That's partly because some of the leaky underground pipes carry water meant to cool a reactor in an emergency shutdown and to prevent a meltdown. Fast moving, tritium can indicate the presence of more powerful radioactive isotopes, like cesium-137 and strontium-90.

So far, federal and industry officials say, the tritium leaks pose no health or safety threat. Tony Pietrangelo, chief nuclear officer of the industry's Nuclear Energy Institute, said impacts are "next to zero." LEAKS ARE PROLIFIC

Like rust under a car, corrosion has propagated for decades along the hard-to-reach, wet underbellies of the reactors — generally built in a burst of construction during the 1960s and 1970s. There were 38 leaks from underground piping between 2000 and 2009, according to an industry document presented at a tritium conference. Nearly two-thirds of the leaks were reported over the latest five years

For example, at the three-unit Browns Ferry complex in Alabama, a valve was mistakenly left open in a storage tank during modifications over the years. When the tank was filled in April 2010, about 1,000 gallons (3,785 liters) of tritium-laden water poured onto the ground at a concentration of 2 million picocuries per liter. In drinking water, that would be 100 times higher than the EPA health standard. And in 2008, 7.5 million picocuries per liter leaked from underground piping at Quad Cities in western Illinois — 375 times the EPA limit.

Subsurface water not only rusts underground pipes, it attacks other buried components, including electrical cables that carry signals to control operations. A 2008 NRC staff memo reported industry data showing 83 failed cables between 21 and 30 years of service - but only 40 within their first 10 years of service. Underground cabling set in concrete can be extraordinarily difficult to replace.

Under NRC rules, tiny concentrations of tritium and other contaminants are routinely released in monitored increments from nuclear plants; leaks from corroded pipes are not permitted. The leaks sometimes go undiscovered for years, the AP found. Many of the pipes or tanks have been patched, and contaminated soil and water have been removed in some places. But leaks are often discovered later from other nearby piping, tanks or vaults. Mistakes and defective material have contributed to some leaks. However, corrosion - from decades of use and deterioration - is the main cause. And, safety engineers say, the rash of leaks suggest nuclear operators are hard put to maintain the decades-old systems.

"We think it should force a re-look at the long-term cleanup plan at Hanford," said Ken Niles, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy. "We don't want that level of contamination reaching the Columbia River."

The U.S. Department of Energy report says the risks from some high-volume radioactive elements, including tritium, strontium and cesium, have already peaked and should diminish relatively quickly. For all locations at Hanford, the peak radiological risk has already occurred, the report says.

Much of Hanford's radioactivity comes from strontium-90 and cesium-137, which have half-lives of roughly three decades, the GAO said, meaning much of the risk should fall relatively quickly.

Hanford produced nuclear materials from 1944 through 1988, operated nine nuclear reactors to produce plutonium and generated millions of gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste. 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.

It's now the nation's most contaminated radioactive cleanup site.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office report in September on tank cleanup said the total estimated cost has risen dramatically and could go as high as $100 billion, well above the current $77 billion estimate. The latest deadline for completing cleanup is 2047, though cleanup dates have been steadily pushed back.

But Mary Beth Burandt, an Energy Department manager, said the agency is undecided and will likely propose steps to address public concerns. Such steps could include more treatment, barrier walls to block contaminant flows and limits on long-lived radioactive elements in incoming 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.

Note the interesting exchange during Tomasitis’ recent Senate testimony at around 3:00 in DR. WALTER TAMOSAITIS, URS: Bechtel is still in charge of the project. Yes, Senator. SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: And everyone sees you go to work in the basement with no windows? TAMOSAITIS: Yes. Yes, ma`am. MCCASKILL: And knows that you are not allowed to work even though you`re there on site and getting paid? TAMOSAITIS: Correct. MCCASKILL: So everyone — so every day you are an example to all the workers there, whether they`re federal employees or Bechtel employees, don`t say anything or you too will be banished to the basement?

TAMOSAITIS: Yes, Senator. Very directly. It`s a very visible example of what happens if you speak up. Advertise | AdChoices MCCASKILL: It`s just unbelievable to me that we`ve allowed this to occur.

Japan is already sweltering in the summer heat as it seeks to save electricity and avoid blackouts

only 19 of Japan's 54 reactors are now operating. The Ooi shutdown -- to be completed Saturday evening -- will bring the number to 18, with further reactors soon due to shut down for regular checks