Some Day

I live and work near Hanford. I hope to live to see the day when all of Hanford's high-level wastes are safely isolated in glass logs. I hope that some day my 17-year-old daughter can safely raise her own family downstream from Hanford.
Much attention goes to the efforts ongoing today to build and start glassifying those wastes. We also hear much about the 1 million gallons of high-level nuclear waste that have leaked from some of the aging tanks.
The tanks-177 of them altogether—hold 56 million gallons of high-level waste. These numbers are very well known to people whose work or concerns focus on Hanford.
Fifty-six million gallons of waste is a huge amount, and is hard to envision. In this waste volume are 190 million curies and 240,000 tons -tons—of chemicals.
The water my family drinks comes from the Columbia River just downstream from Hanford. I don't worry today about the safety of the water my family uses.
However, I worry because if the wastes are not immobilized, they will escape the tanks and enter the environment—some day.
I don't know when "some day" will arrive. I worry because the "some day" when the wastes will poison the river will come, if the glassifying plans stall.
Some day. In some year. Which year? When I retire? When my little girl graduates from college? When she buys her first home? When she becomes a mother? A grandmother?
I am a baby boomer. So are most of the underground tanks at Hanford. Our nation has begun to grapple with the profound societal effects of the aging of our generation. Social Security issues alone illustrate the challenges our aging generation poses to the nation.
Have we really looked at the consequences of storing high-level tanks in underground tanks that have passed their prime of life?
Hanford's first tanks were built in 1943. Today those tanks are 68 years old. The newest of the single-shell tanks were built in 1966. Their design life was 20 years.
We cling to the fact that no double-shell tanks have leaked. Yet. But as the years, then decades, tick by, those tanks also age. The metals corrode, the cement cracks, pumps clog, vents stop, instruments fail. Some day.
The plans to immobilize wastes are also baby boomers. The first Hanford Site waste management plan was issued in 1958, and called for the tank wastes to be immobilized in ceramic form in seven years.
Fifty years later, those wastes still sit in the tanks.
Today, the plans call the government to finish treating the waste from Hanford's tanks in 2047. The newest tanks will be elderly. The oldest tanks will be more than 100 years old. Actuarially speaking, they'll be dead too.
I'm likely to die before then. But I want to live to see the day all of Hanford's tank wastes are turned to glass.
We must keep the vitrification going, or "some day" may come. The deadly toxins in the wastes our grandparents left for us will await our grandchildren, and as surely as this generation of baby boomers is mortal, so are the tanks. We cannot let the nuclear wastes stay in those tanks because we cannot make them stay in those tanks. We must immobilize the wastes before they let loose their poisons in our environment.

Molly Dove