Washington State to sue federal gov. over radioactive waste at Hanford Site
Washington state has announced that it plans to sue the U.S federal government over its failure to adequately protect workers from radiation as they work to remove radioactive material from a location known as the Hanford Site.
The announcement was made on the website of Washington state's Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The basis of the lawsuit is a federally-funded study called the Hanford Tank Vapor Assessment Report.
The report found that the toxic vapors tanks at the Hanford Site emit are directly responsible for the negative health consequences that workers at the site have experienced. Ferguson's announcement says that the report is the latest piece of research in a body of work regarding laborers and the site that dates back to 1987. Among the negative health effects Hanford workers have experienced are permanantly decreased lung capacity, nose bleeds, headaches, nausea, and burning skin. The state of Washington contends that despite this evidence of detrimental health effects, the federal government has not taken adequate steps to protect workers. The Hanford Site was used to create weaponized nuclear material that could be placed in nuclear warheads. The processes that created these weapons resulted in vast amounts of radioactive waste. The Washington Attorney General's statement said there are currently 56 million gallons of nuclear waste at the Hanford Site stored in 177 underground tanks. The tanks were made with only one shell, or layer, because the effects and strength of radiation were not fully understood at the time. In the ensuing years, many of them have sprung leaks. The tanks' poor construction and leakage are the cause of the the workers' injuries. The government's poor understanding of radiation at the time also resulted in the pollution of the air and water around Hanford with large amounts of nuclear waste. The radioactive material used in the atomic bomb dropped over Nagasaki was manufactured in Hanford.
