Tank at Hanford nuclear site leaking radioactive liquids, Washington governor says

[No Elephants]

Tank at Hanford nuclear site leaking radioactive liquids, Washington governor says

By Mike Baker and Shannon Dininny, The Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A tank that holds radioactive liquids is leaking at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, raising concerns about the integrity of other storage facilities at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The U.S. Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the nuclear reservation. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels, the agency said. Inslee said the leak could be in the range of 150 gallons to 300 gallons over the course of a year.

"I am alarmed about this on many levels," Inslee said at a Friday afternoon news conference. "This raises concerns, not only about the existing leak ... but also concerning the integrity of the other single shell tanks of this age."


The tanks hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

more at http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/15/16977573-tank-at-hanford-nuclear-site-leaking-radioactive-liquids-washington-governor-says?lite

Too deadly to fail?


In a speech given by Harold Ford when he headed the DLC, he spoke of shoring up our infrastructure.

In that speech, he threw nuclear power plants in with bridges and roads, as though they had all been built and maintained by governments. Howevver, they've been built and maintained by the power industry, which gets government-protected monopolies and from which private investors have been reaping profits for decades, in part because of those monopolies and in part because they have not been spending all along the money needed to maintain these facilities safely.

What about expecting the people who've been profiting from these privately-owned "public" utilities for deades to put up the money for repairs?

Too logical and just, I guess.

And why did we not make them have reserves for repair and clean up commensurate with the danger? Surely, we saw things like this coming. Hell, every well-run condo and homeowners association maintains adequate reserves, along with doing adequate repair and maintenane on an ongoing basis.


How come neoliberals, aka Republicans, always seem to think that government should be small-teensy weensy, in fact--when it comes to helping individuals or giving them the OASDI they've bought and regulating big business, but very, very big when it comes to over-regulating individuals's private behavior and helping big business?

And why, oh, why, do we continually stand for it, especially when our own Party, be it Republican or Democratic at the time, is the one screwing us?

Another illustration of the maxim that people get the government they deserve.

[Enthusiast]

1. It's more of the "privatize the profit

and socialize the losses" new world we inhabit.

It isn't exactly Fascism. It is kind of a Fascist Plutocracy, or something. Whatever it is, the political class appears to have embraced it wholeheartedly.

I don't think we deserve this kind of government. "We the people" are facing opposition from a massive entrenched lobbying-bribery misinformation mechanism. Honestly, we don't stand a fucking chance. If we try to protest we are shunted off to free-speech zones. And the media will not cover protests because the media is part of the self same evil doer mechanism. They have elections rigged in several ways. Millions of us write and call our "representatives" to no avail. If we got close to stopping this runaway garbage wagon they would simply kill us.

No, we no longer have an intact democracy. It has been systematically dismantled. I see violence as the only remaining solution.

[No Elephants]

2. We voted for it, didn't we? Let alone we didn't rise up against it.