Hanford’s Nuclear Option

The Seattle Times does a major piece on the Hanford, WA site.

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

and …

Now outrage is brewing at Hanford. Some prominent employees working on the project are blowing the whistle over what they believe to be dismissals of internal scientific assessments, as well as alleged abuses of managerial power that have been called to the attention of the Obama Administration, to no avail. These staffers point to institutional failures within the DOE and Bechtel as toxic as the nuclear waste they’re tasked to clean up, asserting that the DOE lacks critical experts on staff to oversee the project and Bechtel rushed through shoddy design plans in order to pocket some quick cash. The consequences are not only jeopardizing safety and putting the project at risk of failure, they are also likely to cost taxpayers even more money should fatally flawed construction ultimately require a complete overhaul.

“We need alternatives to the current plan right now,” Dr. Donald Alexander, a high-level DOE physical chemist working at Hanford, says in distress. “We need a different design and more options on the table. This appears to be a hard thing for [DOE and Bechtel] management to accept. They have spent years of time and money on a bad design, and it will delay the project even more.”

Follow the link above to read the rest of an excellent article