Oregon's Heroine, Washington Senator, Maria Cantwell
by Eugaia Jade
Maria Cantwell stood up on May 20th in the Senate and gave an impassioned speech to prevent the Bush administration from changing the definition of 100 million gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste sludge at Hanford at over 250 other sites across the country. The proposed change would allow the DOE to grout the radioactive sludge in these leaky tanks and walk away without cleaning up the waste.
The offending language to add this change to the 2005 Defense Authorization bill was planted in the bill as an end-run around the legislative process. This technique has worked before—bury the offensive legal change in a huge budget bill where it is not likely to be the subjected to extensive debate in the Senate. However, our heroine discovered the issue and spoke of it on the Senate Floor. An excerpt of her speech:
" Mr. President, if I sound as if I am a little upset about this underlying bill and the fact that it has this sneak attack language to reclassify high-level nuclear waste, you are right.
Fifty-three million gallons of nuclear waste reside at the Hanford nuclear reservation in the State of Washington.
This Senator wants to see that waste cleaned up. I do not believe that can happen by pouring cement on top of it and putting sand in those tanks and all of a sudden now say we have cleaned up waste. Nowhere has that policy been promulgated as sound science.
This is a picture of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and one of its reactors in proximity to the Columbia River. My constituents in Washington State already know the 53 million-gallon tanks of nuclear waste are leaking, and there are toxic plumes that have already gained access to the Columbia River. So, yes, Washington State wants the tanks to be cleaned up. They want the material that has been part of the nuclear mission of this country removed from the tanks, the tanks cleaned up, the ground cleaned up, the plumes removed to the best possible extent, in order for us to go on with our mission and our life at the Hanford Reservation.
What we do not want is somebody to come in and say all of a sudden these underground storage tanks that exist below ground should be taken and cement poured on top of them and that means they are cleaned up."
A Federal Judge in 1982 ruled that the grouting technique was so flawed that it violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Nuclear contamination of the Columbia River would destroy the agricultural economy of this region and present a clear and present danger to all live that thrive in this region. Thank you, Maria!
Maria has posted a petition to prevent this change in policy & law on her website:  http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/nuclearwaste_petition.html
I encourage you to sign the petition as soon as possible. Call these Senators: Spencer Abraham, Bill Frist and John Warner amd tell them you want all nuclear waste cleaned up under its original classification and not just grouted like a shower stall.
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This includes abandonment of the spirit and letter of agreements to do a thorough cleanup and restoration to full access conditions of the U$ Cold War nuke brown fields and Super Fund sites. They have better uses for that money--Haliburton contracts, for one.
His address will be at the Department of Energy.