Jeff McMahon, Contributor I cover green technology, energy and
the environment from Chicago. One of the underground tanks
suspected of leaking at the Hanford Nuclear Waste Site has been
known as an “assumed leaker” for so long—on and off since
1979—that several studies have been conducted to reveal its
contents. On Friday, a spokeswoman for Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee could shed little light on that question: “It’s nuclear
waste,” spokeswoman Jaime Smith told AFP, soon after Inslee met
Energy Secretary Steven Chu in Washington DC. ”Different tanks
have slightly different kinds of waste that they’re holding.
We’re not clear yet on exactly what has been leaking for how
long.” But we can get clear. So far DOE has identified only one
of at least six tanks that seem to have dropping levels of
liquid waste. The level inside tank T-111 has been dropping by
150-300 gallons per year, DOE revealed last week. Beginning in
1944, Tank T-111 received wastes from processes used to extract
plutonium from spent-nuclear fuel fo