Energy Department fined $1 million - Yahoo! News

Energy Department fined $1 million - Yahoo! News

RICHLAND, Wash. - The
Environmental Protection Agency' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday fined the federal Energy Department $1.1 million over violations of an agreement to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation, the nation's most polluted nuclear site.
The fine involved operations at a landfill that is the primary repository for contaminated soils, debris and other hazardous and radioactive waste from cleanup operations across the site.
After first shutting down operations upon discovery of the failures, the EPA has permitted the landfill to resume operations under strict oversight.
The EPA pointed out problems in a letter to the Energy Department on Tuesday, saying that workers did not perform weekly inspections that would reduce the risk of leaks in landfill liners and that operations did not comply with tests on compacted waste for structural stability.
The violations did not release any radioactive waste, said Nick Ceto, the EPA's Hanford Project Manager.
"Our cleanup agreement with the
Department of Energy' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Department of Energy clearly defines what constitutes responsible, careful waste management practice," said Elin D. Miller, an EPA regional administrator. "Continued missteps at one of the country's most complex and difficult cleanup sites cannot, and will not, be tolerated."
Said Energy Department spokeswoman Colleen French: "We've said from the outset that we take these incidents at (the landfill) very seriously and are taking any and all actions necessary to make sure that nothing like this can happen again."
The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The site continued to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal through the Cold War.
Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Cleanup is expected to top $50 billion and continue through 2035.
(Corrects indirect quote from Ceto to add word 'not', violations did not release any radioactive waste.)