America's ongoing nuclear debacles ( June 9 , 2014 ) - Hanford ( Washington State - this debacle has gone on for many decades ) Updates from Energy News and Hanford Challenge ...... WIPP updates from Energy News and SimplyInfo - the potential for explosion of course is being suppressed , along with the extent of the ongoing contamination ......

Energy News......


Hanford.......

NBC Right Now, Apr. 30, 2014: Former Hanford Worker Sick from Nuclear Waste

• Jane Sander, reporter: A nuclear waste spill happened hours before at the tank farm.
• Lonnie Poteet, Hanford worker: I was already burning from my glove line to my t-shirt line and… starting to lose a little bit of vision in my right eye… Why didn’t they say something?
• Sander: Poteet describes living his life now as recluse… sharp pains in his head, they cause him to often twitch. He says medication prevents him from collapsing in pain due to severe nerve damage in his brain.
• Poteet: [More Hanford workers] are going to be exposed to the same situation… Nobody is going to do anything to stop it… As long as there’s profit… and they get their bonuses on a decent time, that’s all they care about… Most of the workers onsite right now are running scared. They will not bring up any safety concerns because as soon as you do, you’re going to be labeled and thrown off the site, just as fast as they can go. They’ll either create stuff that never happened, or they’ll find ways to get you.
• Watch the broadcast here

NBC Right Now, June 5, 2014: Sick Former Hanford Worker Speaks Out

• Jane Sander, reporter: He sadly lives his life with a deadly disease…
• Lawrence Rouse, Hanford worker:  I have toxic encephalopathy… it eats your brain away.
• Sander: Near the end of his almost 20 years at Hanford… he began to develop severe symptoms. Stuttering, memory loss, losing teeth…emotionally unstable…violent outbursts.
• Rouse: [My son] wrote this letter, this little poem, and said that his dad is gone… It would rain the chemicals on you from the stack. That’s why we wore the baseball caps.
• Sander: The Washington Dept. of Labor and DOE denied [compensation]… Since the [EEOICPA] program began in 2001, they’ve paid more than $1 billion in compensation and medical bills to [6,936 Hanford] workers…
• Rouse: DOE has always denied everything. And that’s not going to change.
• Sander: More Hanford workers continue to file claims for their illnesses.
• Watch the broadcast here

KING 5 Seattle (NBC), June 4, 2014: It’s an unprecedented series of workplace accidents in the state. Since mid-March the number Hanford workers seeking medical help after breathing in chemical vapors has risen to 34.

• Susannah Frame, reporter: Vapors causing serious illnesses at Hanford is not new… at the most contaminated workplace in the nation, OSHA can’t get past the gates to investigate.
• Diana Gegg, Hanford worker: It’s turned my life upside down.
• Frame: Brain damage, sudden tremors, vision loss, dementia – Illnesses the gov’t admits were caused by exposure… she can’t go out without a wheelchair, cook, or drive.
• Watch the broadcast here

http://www.hanfordchallenge.org/newsroom/

The Latest News:

June

• Board wants better details in Hanford lifecycle report, The Tri-City Herald, June 8, 2014.

• Sick former Hanford worker speaks out about his deadly disease & federal compensation for sick workers, KULR 8 News, June 5, 2014.

• Corporate Contractors’ Heavy Burdens on Taxpayers, Dissident Voice, June 5, 2014.

• ‘No consequences’ at Hanford for safety failures, King5 News, June 4, 1014.

• Court-Ordered Negotiations Between Feds, Washington State Are Up, NW News Network, June 4, 2014.

• No decisions made on Hanford consent decree, The Tri-City Herald, June 3, 2014.

• Tri-City leaders want say in Hanford land use, The Tri-City Herald, June 3, 2014.

• Mother lode of chromium at Hanford excavated, The Tri-City Herald, June 2, 2014.

• Hanford iron may help protect river, The Tri-City Herald, June 1, 2014.

WIPP.....



http://enenews.com/concern-for-full-plutonium-flash-at-wipp-nuclear-site-that-affects-other-drums-and-triggers-spreading-disaster-plutonium-239-is-a-main-radioactive-material-in-drum-that-exploded-anonymous-em

Sante Fe New Mexican, June 9, 2014: On the night of Feb. 14,  waste in an underground salt cavern in Southern New Mexico created so much heat the drum’s lid cracked. Radiation leaked out. [...] The parent waste drum came from a waste stream including [...] two main radioactive isotopes — plutonium-239 [the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons] and uranium-238. [...] “A lot of the drums we opened up had a lot of liquid,” said one former employee familiar with the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity [...] EnergySolutions also switched from a clay-based kitty litter to Swheat, an organic kitty litter, for absorbing fluids. [...] The former employee familiar with the repackaging process said EnergySolutions staff tried to warn the company’s administrators that the switch in kitty litter was a bad idea. The nitrate salts and the wheat-based kitty litter created a combustible mix, according to chemists. The warnings were ignored, the employee said. “They put us in danger, too,” he said. EnergySolutions did not respond to multiple requests for comment [...]
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DC Bureau — Natural Resources News Service, by Joseph Trento, June 5, 2014: On Valentines night, one of the now suspect 500 waste drums from DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) blast open inside DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Casks filled with 3.2 million cubic feet of deadly radioactive wastes remain buried at the crippled plant. That huge facility was rendered useless. Investigators believe the waste drums from Los Alamos were incorrectly packed under DOE supervision and one of them exploded. [...]  after the explosion, there are still 367 suspect storage canisters that came from LANL that are still at WIPP. [...] when the explosion took place in Panel 7 [Panel = A "huge storage room"], Panel 6, left open, could still be contaminated. State Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn told local newspapers, “I agree those Panels need to be closed immediately.” If the blast turned into full plutonium flash, other drums in Panel 6 could be affected and the disaster spread, which is why it is vital for workers at WIPP to know what is in the containers and where they are located.

See also: Top Science Journal: "Time bombs" at WIPP nuclear site? "High alert over risk of new explosions" in hundreds of plutonium-contaminated drums -- AP: 4 years may be needed just to seal off area where drums stored -- Experts go down to check if ground 'still stable' (VIDEO)

Simply Info ......

WIPP’s Refusal On Public Accountability

Since the incidents at WIPP in February the city of Carlsbad has been holding periodic town hall meetings to update the public on the situation at WIPP. These meetings have been broadcast online and the public has been allowed to ask questions via online submission. That sadly hasn’t obligated DOE or the contractor running WIPP to actually answer them or … Read entire article »

WIPP Cat Litter Acts As Fuel To Ignition Or Reaction

Officials at WIPP have admitted that the suspect barrels are packed with “organic kitty litter”. We were able to confirm that it was a wheat based cat litter. Wheat based cat litters are made out of wheat bran and are readily available at most stores in the US. Wheat bran is also available in a pelleted or flake form as a … Read entire article »