The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 72 - The Hanford Radiation Nightmare

Episode Date: April 5, 2015

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Hanford Nuclear site in Washington State.SOURCESTOUR DATESREDBUBBLE MERCHPATREON

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Welcome to the dollop this is an American History podcast each week I read a story from American history to my friend

Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is about. It's true. His name is Gareth. Gary. Gareth. Gary. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickling podcast. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do what? Fray. Hi Gary. No. I see done my friend. Hanford was a tiny farm town along the Columbia River in eastern Washington state. It was settled in the 1860s and before that the area was popular meeting place for Native Americans. Archeologists have found

artifacts showing natives lived in the area for over 10,000 years. I guess that's why they're native. Yeah that's a good point. I like the way you think. Thank you. Hanford streets and building locks were planned out in 1907 on land purchased in 1905 by priests rapid irrigation and power company. In May 1913 the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad was completed to Hanford. This was a transcontinental link to the area allowing farmers to ship large quantities of produce. This combined with increasing produce prices resulted in a major boom in the first two decades of the 20th century. Okay. Shit was on. Yeah

in Hanford. Yeah I'm sure things will continue to be great. Why wouldn't they? Wow. The US Army began eyeing Hanford in 1943. That's not good. The area fit the needs of the Army's top secret project the Manhattan Project. Oh boy. The Manhattan Project was of course a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. A place to produce plutonium was needed. Oh boy. Hanford was it. Oh god. It was extremely remote not a town larger than a thousand people within 20 miles and the Columbia River was a perfect source of water for cooling nuclear reactors. So using eminent domain the federal

government acquired the land about 586 square miles and told 1,500 area residents along with an unrecorded amount of Native Americans from four different tribes that they had 30 days to leave. Jesus. Can you imagine? To build bombs. You just live in in your little house. All right guys. Hey listen that's a wrap for you guys. So back up your TPs. Go ahead and get the fuck out. Ship her out. It's in the name of nuclear bombs so you know it's a good cause. Oh boohoo I'm sorry did you live here. God listen Native Americans at this point we thought you'd get used to being fucked so much you're really bitching. Right this is

like almost hacky what we're doing. Good lord. Yeah this is a copy of a copy really. The new facility would consist of 554 buildings built by August 1945. The reactors it housed would first produce plutonium that would be used in the Trinity nuclear test at Los Alamos New Mexico which cost the US government over a billion dollars to make. There was worry that the extremely expensive plutonium would be wasted if the bomb didn't go off in the test. What a fear. Major General Leslie Groves who was in charge of the Manhattan Project even had a kind of oversized catcher's mitt built out of concrete to catch the

plutonium. I can't even imagine what. Like what is that even. Let's just a big concrete catcher's mitt. So he just be okay. And then when it and then if the plutonium goes in there he goes he's out. Yeah it's okay he's out of there. But the the explosion went off as hoped. Oh thank god. Great great great ending to the story. Hanford also made the plutonium that was inside Fat Man the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 1945. It estimated 35,000 to 40,000 people were killed 60,000 were injured and about 44% of the city was destroyed. Good people us. It's cool. It's cool. Hey listen we called it Fat Man. You know how we always

tell everyone they can't have a nuclear weapon. We're the only people that have actually used one. They can't Dave. Okay cool. Groovy. I'm worried about Iran having that. Oh yeah because they attack so many other countries. Hey listen. Yeah. You know how many countries Iran is actually offensively attacked in its history? Oh god the list goes on and on. I was listening to Benny Netanyahu the other day. Man. The number is zero. Yeah I mean there's number zero but still it feels like 30. Yeah okay. The target at Nagasaki was actually inside of a valley and it was less successful than Little Boy. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The

cuter of the bombs I'm obviously. Yeah Little Boy. Little Boy killed between 70-80,000 people a third of the city's population. Wow. Another 70,000 and destroyed almost 70% of the city. Perfect. So that was that was cool. That's a good boy. Yep. It's a good boy. It's just fun. Two years later the responsibility of manufacturing nuclear weapons came under civilian control. General Electric was awarded the first contract. The federal government. It would be great if that was a guy in the army. I'm General Electric. And he always had. Stand down. Did you ever see the electric cowboy that Robert read for a movie? No. Well there is he like comes out

riding and he's and and he's got lights all over his outfit. Uh-huh. But that'd be cool if that's a General Electric one. Yeah. Yeah. They just had like lights all over him. Yeah. Yeah. He's riding like he's riding a horse with Christmas lights on it. The federal government ordered the production of plutonium to be ramped up at the Hanford site. Hey thank God for that. In 1947 two more nuclear reactors were installed and by 1963 there were a total of nine working. I don't like where we're headed. Why? It's not good. What could go wrong? Maybe this is just a great story about how things worked out. And I think well okay. I think yeah okay.

Okay. Yeah. In 43 years Hanford site produced 65% of the plutonium installed in the United States 60,000 weapon arsenal. All the while reactors were running the facility was creating an overwhelming amount of radioactive waste. Cool. Including it's easy to get rid of that's one thing we've noticed. Including tansuranic waste which is highly radioactive. The process of creating plutonium is extremely inefficient and a lot of waste both solid and liquid results from it. The solid waste that was produced came in the form of used and broken equipment as well as contaminated materials such as workers clothing and tools. Nice. The production

of plutonium not only used thousands of gallons of water and fuel that needed to be disposed of properly it also produced a toxic sludge that was highly radioactive and dangerous. The waste contaminated materials that were radio radio toxic. The waste contained materials that were radio toxic meaning that they can be biologically harmful because they are so radioactive. Shocking. Some of this waste has been recorded as giving off more than 10,000 rems per hour which would be lethal to anyone standing three feet away from the material. Jesus. If only for a few minutes. Oh God. Exposure to the lower level radioactive

material can lead to diseases like cancer and genetic damage and stuff like that. Oh so that's more long. Oh that's nice. At first workers disposed of the liquid waste, the water and the sludge, by pouring it on the grounds. This practice stopped after a few months when they realized that it was contaminating the ground water and soil. Hey, hey Bob. Yeah. You know we're just pouring this radioactive waste into the ground. Yeah, yeah, it's perfect. I think it's getting radioactive waste into the ground. Now that you mention it I have been pissing neon. So I think if we if we just keep pouring radioactive waste onto

the ground then the ground will become radioactive. Oh I see what you're saying. Yeah where I'm going? Yeah then things will be good. Okay. Let's get this waste pouring. The practice was stopped but they only stopped dumping the highly radioactive materials. Water used to cool the reactors and other types of low level radioactive waste would still be tossed on the ground until... Baby steps. Until? Oh boy. 1997. Oh Christ. Jesus Christ. Oh fuck. I'm gonna say until 1997. Ugh. Hey Gara. Yeah. Did I mention until 1997? Yeah. I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No that's that's coming across pretty clearly. Okay. Because before 1997 how

could anybody know? Well I mean look we didn't have access to facts. No there was no there was no research on nuclear or anything. No you didn't think no we didn't think it was bad to have nuclear or anything. No there was no indication of that at all. No. It's just like bathwater you pour it out on the ground. Well look we weren't there when we dropped the bombs on Nagasite. Thank you. We didn't see the actual impact. Thank you. I also never saw Silkwood and I didn't go to the through my violin movie The China. So you know it takes a while. Kind of syndrome I didn't see any of that. It takes a while. I used to think it was good

for you like cigarettes. I can't read books. No. I'm gonna be reading books and learning about what I'm doing. No. That's not how this works. It's the 90s man. Now as far as the sludge went instead of just dumping the sludge on the ground they began burying it. The most radioactive waste that was produced was pumped into large underground tanks. Smaller batches of the dreaded tanzeric tanzeric anac waste were collected in cardboard boxes placed on two trucks that were protected by iron pans called gunk catchers. Oh so they're like clinical. And.

Fucking gunk catchers. There's a two year old naming it. Gunk catching. Oh that's a good one Bill. And they were buried in trenches near the site. Smart. What could go wrong? That practice would go on until the early 1950s. Around this time multiple fires occurred at the facility mostly at the burial sites. We assume that not only did these places occur because of the waste itself which can self-combust. They're also quite large. Now this is an assumption we make because there are documents in existence that note these incidents and have been made public. Many records documenting the shipment of waste to the burial grounds

are still classified or have been destroyed including all documents for burial ground that held the most dangerous hazardous waste. Cool. No reason for it to be classified. No. Well yeah I mean I think you know I think I know why they classify that shit. Well we'll see. Mr. Big Baby I don't like America. Excuse me I don't. Well if you don't like this story you hate America. Well then guess what. In 1953 research started at all labs at Hanford that involved high-level radio chemical operations which resulted in the most hazardous waste ever to be produced on the site. Site monitors were

so concerned by how radioactive the waste was that they recommended a new disposal system instead of cardboard boxes and gunk catchers. Well what was wrong with that plan. Hey I got an idea. Well why don't we do this like we're not four year olds. What. Yeah I think we should do you know we you know every day you're like hey when you go to the grocery store get some boxes. Yeah. I think we shouldn't dispose of the radioactive waste that way. I agree that's why we got the gunk catchers. Yeah but those are just like silver pans called gunk catchers. Yeah it's catchy. It works. Okay we're gonna try

something different. All right. You want to hear the new plan. Yeah. Okay the waste from the research will be collected in five to six gallon aluminum milk pails and then we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna seal these pails up and place them in underground containers and gonna cover those with sand and concrete. Oh well as long as sand is covering them. Woo you won't be worried for a second that we were gonna do something competent. No it's yeah we're gonna just doing something different and stupid. Okay cool. Monitors noticed that the areas where the pails were buried were getting hotter so workers began

putting the pails inside aluminum casks with lead interiors that were then dropped on bottomless concrete tubes installed in the burial grounds. Bottomless concrete tubes. I mean I don't think they're bottomless but they're pretty deep. They're not bottomless but they're fucking far. I do like how we really don't give a fuck about inside of the earth. Never really have. No we don't care about the earth. Like we don't mind like ejecting whatever the fuck it is into earth or just dropping barrels of nuclear waste on bottomless pits which have bottoms. Whatever it there's a hole put something in it. Hey listen listen

you sound like cum stock. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah dude wait. You know what I'm talking about. Fuck him. I don't know. The majority of the waste that was produced at Hanford and estimated 525 million gallons. Oh boy. Fuck. Was high level tank waste which had to be pumped into large underground steel containers. There are currently a total of 177 tanks. Good. 149 of them are single shell carbon steel tanks built from 1943 to 1964. What the fuck. That's terrible. These were built with life expectations of 20 years. Oh my god what are you. The one thing you don't want to hear on that is life expectation. I love

that. You want to hear immortal. I love it's something that has a half life of millions of years or whatever it is and they put it in things to have a life of 20 years. Like what were they thinking people were gonna dig it up and then they must have been like 75 when they did it. Like well I won't be working here. It won't matter 20 years I'll be in the ground like this nuclear waste. I retire in 18 years. Alrighty. This will be fine. The first tank leak was confirmed in 1959 which is well below the 20 years. Yeah. Besides solid and liquid waste the reprocessing plants also routinely routinely released radioactive isotopes

from their gigantic stacks which were blown down wind in nearby populations. In some instances extremely large quantities of radio nuclides were released into the air intentionally while the Air Force attempted a two-day green run in 1949. A green run. Oh a green run. Green runs are when batches of uranium are processed before they have cooled for 83 to 100 days. They're still quote green at that point and the one time it was tried at Hanford with materials that had only cooled for 16 days between 5,000 and 12,000 curies of radio nuclides were released into the air. What's the rush? Mostly iodine 131

which causes thyroid disease and cancer. Oh good. But what's the rut? Why do they have to? Well you heard the phrase get her done? Yeah. That phrase has been great to America. Done wonders for comedy. I think that's what we're talking about here. Oh yeah. This definitely sounds like a comedy. I don't know the reason why they would have I mean maybe maybe they just had to create a bunch really fast. But still it's like how can you be so cavalier with like with with nuclear like with glowing shit? You're not fun. No I'm not fun. Have you? Have you ever seen the movie Modern Problems with Chevy Chase? He gets covered by

some radioactive waste. Oh. With Goldie Hawn? Yeah. Yeah. He drives behind a truck and like nuclear waste spills on him and then he becomes yeah he just what does he become? He can like make funny stuff happen. I don't know if funny happened but he can make stuff happen with his mind like he gives her orgasms by just standing there. Oh okay. Oh move stuff around. Oh I didn't realize that the upside to this was that an SNL alum could move shit with his eyes. I think that happens. Well let's see what happens at the end of the story. I'm excited. But I'm betting that's where this goes. Cool cool cool cool cool. The

public of course knew nothing about the releases and if people didn't start getting sick they might have never known. According to a Department of Energy study as many as two million people were exposed to radiation through the release of these isotopes and the fallout two million people. Did I mention two million people? Yeah. And the fallout reached as far as Montana and even Canada. Sorry Canada. Alright listen you knew the deal when you moved next door Canada we like to fucking rage. You know what you don't want to move you don't want to party don't move next to to a party house. Sorry guys you fucking you

parked next to a frat house. That's right bitch and we fucking keep shit on all the time. Sorry bro. Sorry about the radioactive material bro. Oh and the Atomic Energy Act of 1854 freed private companies work on nuclear weaponry from independent oversight. Okay. I just want to I just want to go over that for a minute. Sure. So in 1954 they were contracting out all this work instead of the government doing it themselves and then they just said that there's gonna be no independent oversight. So you guys do whatever you want. But that's the best way to do it. I think like when police police themselves that always is the

safest way to handle shit. Whatever you want. Yep. What can go wrong. It's just nuclear material. We're trusting you to trust you. You know what you guys know how bad this shit is you're not gonna do anything wrong. You guys get it. You're not gonna cut corners. No. Right it's nuclear material. No not even for just like a minimal profit game in the short term. What stupid asshole would cut corners. Bingo. Maybe the stupid asshole who thought that a 20-year shelf life for something that lasts for fucking ever would be fine inside of. It should be noted that direct exposure isn't needed for isotopes to affect humans as they

can enter the food chain through grazing animals like you for a second I thought we were gonna be left out cows and sheep don't eat me which eat contaminated grass so what's cool is that then then that's not just the people who are in that area was also all the people who ate the meat it's the circle the circle of life the isotopes also contaminated fish in the Columbia River which thereby exposed multiple Native American communities in the area that live on fish heavy diets how do you think there's any way for Native Americans to thank us like it feels like we keep stepping up for them and we've

never really gotten an official like we appreciate it or just like a little note or something how about a nod yeah what you guys have done for us yeah unexpected keep in mind before we got here they were just like animals yeah running around eating and there was clothes on yeah and money really wasn't a huge money like they didn't have fuck valueless paper they believe that a tribe no one in a tribe get on something it's something the tribe had a blonde everybody and that land could land can actually be possessed by a person own land how much of a nightmare with it with the world be if there was an

actual actually personal ownership and and if you couldn't own land if the land was the land I'll say what every other race thinks daily mm-hmm thank God for whitey thank you you said it out loud ah over the years thousands of residents that were downwind from the nuclear reservation later nicknamed downwinders by local media cool how did they come up with it hey I'm a downwinder they were diagnosed with thyroid disease and cancer and several children were born handicapped there were so many victims and the issues were so visible in communities like Spokane that a movement was started to push the

government to investigate whether or not the Hanford site was to blame in 1986 the fed succumbed to public pressure and declassified 19,000 documents regarding the release and this disposal of radioactive waste and people were like cardboard what yeah yeah the following year the Department of Energy started the Hanford environmental dose reconstruction project the HEDR which was given the congressional congressionally mandated task of studying whether or not the release of ice stoops into the air were to blame for thousands of cases of thyroid disease in the area I love how it needs to be

fucking studying I mean it's just that it has to be proven but they do but the it's the whole it's always just the same just buying fucking time they're just buying time fuck you more whenever there's contaminants and cancer they're just by climate change this shit always buying time waiting for people to die yeah the final hazards results were released were released twice the first time they were announced in 1999 with the Department of Energy heading the study 99 but that's good yeah so this that's good the people the people who did it should be the ones who do the study right that's the best way to handle

I think so I think that who could do a better job than the people who poured the the radioactive waste and they know it best yeah they're not gonna say something they're not gonna lie to save their own house oh no fucking way never the that study was not well received the study was then given over to Batel a Hanford contractor who released their results in 2002 both rounds of results found that there was no connection between the release of radio that was close I was worried for a second that there might be at Hanford and those suffering from thyroid disease nearby no independent study was needed no you don't need one

we have why would you do different studies done by the same people yeah come on everything's good here although another government study from 1990 had found that Hanford's releases did put local population at risk for thyroid disease how did our science get worse so so nine years before they didn't realize they had already put out a report so they didn't fuck everybody that same year a massive 2,000 litigants civil suit was filed against the Department of Energy at the time the plaintiff's lawyers were looking to settle for 500 million the government responded by indemnifying all private

contractors at Hanford thereby clearing them of responsibility ensuring that they would be safe from litigation so the fucking assholes these private corporations who just fucked everybody destroyed the land and then and then gave people cancer they just get a free ride yeah and a lot of times too not only that they'll fucking send the attack dogs on the sick on the people they fucked the feds would then go on to spend 600 million on defending itself in court okay so six this is six 60 million okay nevermind 60 but still 60 million it's a lot that's a lot of fucking yeah it's crazy I mean yeah since then a small

number of the original 2,000 cases have been heard starting in 2005 when six bellwether cases were brought to trial the jury awarded a total of 545,000 to two plaintiffs suffering from thyroid cancer but the other four were denied judgments in 2011 a jury heard the cases of another 139 patients and ended up awarding them all about 800,000 in total or in total 5,683 per oh my god has your cancer five grand for cancer as cancer you know it's just cancer oh yeah in 18 nine it's 1987 Hanford shut down its last reactor processing weapon grade plutonium the rest of the reactors had already been shut down back in the 60s

and 70s two years later the Department of Energy the EPA and the Washington State Department of Ecology the EPA began the framework for what would be the world's largest environmental cleanup among its goals is to restore the Columbia River Corridor for other uses and to set up on-site facilities for waste treatment and storage since then the cleanup has cost the federal government two billion dollars a year 40 billion in total so what I mean it's just so counterproductive a 2014 report updated that the total costs are 113.6 billion with most of the cleanup work scheduled to be completed by 2060 oh my god 113 billion I mean it's

fine and you can't spare some fucking money for these people the cost of the cleanup though astronomically high is not shocking when taken into account that the total number of radioactive waste stored at Hanford which includes 25 cubic 25 million cubic feet of solid waste and 270 billion gallons of contaminated water you can't even imagine how much water that is no what do you do I mean that's unimaginable yeah Harford is now the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States I mean I guess Chernobyl is probably a little bit worse yeah fair the biggest challenge in the cleanup is dealing with tank waste though

much of it is already gone of the over 500 gallons of this high-level waste that was produced by Hanford only 56 million gallons remain in the tanks today over the years the total has been reduced by 90% through evaporation chemical treatment leakage and purposeful discharge into the ground as long as we've gotten rid of it in a healthy way an estimate evaporation is my favorite rain an estimated a hundred and thirty million gallons of tank waste were sucked at every an estimated 130 gallons of tank waste were sucked out of the tanks and discharged into the dirt to make room for more waste oh fuck what the

fuck Jesus Christ I can't I just I mean it like when I used to work when I used to work construction on houses and I would see a dude like poor paint somewhere he shouldn't I'd be like are you out of your mind that's that's the stupidest thing I've ever read yeah that's the stupidest thing I've ever read they needed to throw it out they didn't have any more tanks so they just took the old shit and dumped it in the ground and put the new shit like that made a fucking difference does anybody know the half-life of ready the radio active waste I we do there was a guy a friend of mine in college was got a job

cleaning out asbestos from places and the guys he worked with were so dumb that they would just up in the attic take down their mask and start smoking a cigarette and be like dude what the fuck you doing I need a fucking smoke this shit this shit isn't real don't worry it's fireproof I could smoke around it Jesus Christ much of the tank waste has been relocated from the leaky single shell tanks to a newer double shelled one you know double shell is also isn't really that comforting double shell it two shells awesome though almost three million gallons of liquid waste still remain in the old tanks good 2012 the

Department of Energy reported that one of the double-shelled tanks had a leak in the inner shell that's okay though that's why we got to that's why there's the double the double thing the following year the Department of Energy announced that the tank was actually leaking 150 to 300 gallons of waste into the ground per year they might want to really just come to their conclusions faster when Washington State Governor Jay Inslee went to the Department of Energy to discuss solutions for the following week he learned that it wasn't just one tank it was six cool doesn't think another 13 were ready for leaking oh man I'm so

glad we put two shells on them that was the way to go most of the waste that has been leaked from the tanks appears to just stay in the soil where it was dumped oh but as of 2008 one million gallons of the radioactive liquid that had entered the groundwater he created an underground plume that was making its way towards the Columbia River the fourth largest river in the United States of America underground plume is always a good thing to hear it doesn't sound good right feels good it makes me feel good like double shell yeah if the cleanup doesn't proceed as scheduled the plume could reach the river in 12 to 50 years

that 12 members a little scary yeah the 50 years is better the 12 ones frighten both terrible it's like we're in a fucking it's like we're sprinting to end it all we yeah it's just like we used to be like I was thinking about this the other day when I was cutting up like you know when you have like a six pack and you cut up the plastics that you don't kill fish or whatever yeah or birds yeah that's I mean you should still do that but I mean does it really fucking matter at this point I mean we fucked it all up anyway I mean what you know what the fuck I'm an animal rights activist and I'm seriously just like does it matter

when aren't you doing them a little bit of a favor by strangling them they hire you to clean birds after an oil spill and you're the guy they arrest for just choking them yeah they're better off yeah yeah better off aren't they kind of I mean you do make a good point a bitch gonna be a real who done it when mankind's done it really is it's gonna be like clue how did this happen a vitrification plant which would use which would be used to turn the waste into glass tubes that are stable and could be buried safely has been in the work since 1991 and it was originally

supposed to be completed by 1999 so for whatever process you can take the radioactive waste and turn it into glass and then it's not harmful not harmful at all yeah that's what they're saying that's that's it's stable and then it can be buried safely and it's not gonna it's not gonna like leak or go anywhere it's gonna be a thing that isn't a problem then you can dispose of it without worrying about it well I'm glad we're not doing that well that has become difficult because construction actually didn't begin until the year 2000 good supposed to be completed by 1999 yeah well let's not move on that and

it was later learned the Department of Energy and Bechtel the company contracted to build the plant for 4.3 billion decided to save money I love it already you got to cut corners of this shit pocket some for yourself by starting construction before a process for the plant to vitrify waste had been designed to test it so wait so they're building a plant that they don't know how the plant's gonna work but that's the plant they're building it would it would be like right now building a plant for time machines and just starting to build it yeah and figuring it would all work itself out timing is everything in this

business baby hamford's waste is unlike any other material that has ever been vitrified it comes in so many different types and forms that not one not just one process will work but the project went forward anyway without even the basic problem having been solved perfect we're building a plant to do something then we don't know how to do but it's gonna cost four billion point three billion that sums up America so fucking well yeah that's pretty good one of the first systems of the plant that was completed was the waste feed which was how the

material moved through the facility to be processed so it's like that's how you're getting the material into the plant to be processed by the plant and turning to glass sure so tubes but inspections found that solid waste was building up in the piping which could not only clog the pipes but it could create nuclear explosions great further testing found that the system used to propel the waste through the pipes was not only inefficient it was so taxing on the pipes that it resulted in corrosion and possible leakage so now the plant that's supposed to be there to turn the radioactive material into a stable form

is now having a bomb center further testing oh when the when these issues were revealed the chief engineer on the project resigned whistleblower complaints were also brought against Bechtel by a higher-up engineer and a safety manager who said their concerns about safety at the plant were being suppressed as it now stands the vitrification plant is expected to cost 12.7 billion dollars good and is mandated to start operating in 2019 Jesus Christ I mean just take your fucking time good God I love there's nothing I love breaking you I think I broke you and 19 don't take pride in

this shit 1957 Washington State formed the Washington public power supply system to provide power to local utilities it would later be known as whoops I'm guessing that stands for the Washington housing operational plutonium state because of its financial gamble on nuclear power it issued 2.25 billion in bonds back in the 1970s to pay for the construction of five nuclear power plants and had a default on the bonds which was the largest bomb default in history at that time only one of those five power plants was completed and it currently runs today the Columbia generation generating system CGS which

sits on the Hanford site critics say it's the most costly nuclear plant to run in the nation it is also generated about 320,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that are so dangerous that just minutes of explosion near them can be lethal the waste created by CGS is about a hundred to 150 to 250 percent more radioactive than what is being currently held in the underground tanks well that's good that we're kind of racing the underground with above ground with what we're doing why stop doing it I would say that's a fair point yep thank you if it's broke keep doing it keep doing it and doing worse yeah that's the best way

to do it yeah as would be expected at a job site that deals with extremely dangerous materials and operates without any independent oversight working conditions at the Hanford site are quite hazardous what there are no documents on exposures before 1987 but even that late into the site's existence workers reported the effects of harmful radiation exposure nosebleeds headaches watery eyes burning skin etc just from smelling vapors while near the underground tanks many of these workers have reported long-term disabilities so they just smell shit when they're near underground tanks yeah it honestly it

reminds like it's a lot like the like oil spills like when oil spills like there's a lot of people in the Gulf who oh yeah like they I mean there's some circumstances where people come into contact with water and are forever different yeah like it there's they have skin conditions they get cancer from just touching fucking water yeah good times are had by all yeah yeah no it's fun site workers who have been employed by other nuclear facilities reported that the safety requirements that at Hanford are seriously less stringent wait at Hanford yeah what yeah Hanford sounds crazy for example workers at

Hanford are only required to wear one a device to detect radiation while at other nuclear sites employees wear two or more because you know in case one doesn't work yeah yeah that'll be the reason well I think that's because sometimes don't work little that's our double casing theory of men uh-huh the site was so reckless when it came to worker safety that one former Hanford reporter worker reported that his break room was in an area that was so contaminated that he needed to suit up to enter it I mean how like he's sitting up for you going out nah just gonna go get some Fritos gotta be careful I mean

how do you like how are you staying there as an employee how does anyone work there people are so poor they don't understand that they're poor but they just they just like they have kids in the like I have to fucking put a house over their head and if I die in 20 years because cancer isn't that's what happens I mean Arby's Arby's is always hiring but that's not enough money to survive on but the people have to people who do these guys had to put their life on the line possibly die probably die early so that their kids can go to a decent school or have a house over their head and they're not starving to death I

mean that's the choice they're making don't don't get all I love America since World War two hundreds of thousands of former employees of the Department of Energy run nuclear sites developed disabling or fatal illnesses so many people who worked with nuclear weapons were stricken with horrible health issues that the government was called into help one of the last things president your government one of the last things President Bill Clinton did before he left office was sign an executive order called the emergency employees occupational illness compensation program act it created a

program that provides money to individuals who worked in nuclear weapon produced production or certain survivors of those individuals that contracted specific illnesses as determined by the government okay so that's a good thing he didn't eat it a good thing I can't wait to see Clinton did a good thing okay and then limit can I guess they could get a lump sum of a hundred fifty thousand dollars does it still stand today well it wasn't the Clinton administration that would be creating and running the program that responsibility would fall to George W. Bush knew it fucking asshole in 2001 the

program began accepting applications in two parts subtitle B which served suffers of radiation related illnesses run by the Department of Labor and subtitle D which was the toxin exposure fund overseen by the Department of Energy the ones who made everyone sick in the first place yeah well looks and they're gonna be honest when Bush came into office he named Spencer Abraham as his first secretary of energy let me guess it was fortuitous for Abraham before then he was a Michigan senator but it just lost his re-election to a second term Abraham was typical of Bush's choices for cabinet members he was a

dedicated Republican who had absolutely no background in science as a matter of fact as a senator he once called for dismantling the Department of Energy that's perfect that's that's exactly who you want fucking running up Robert Kennedy Jr. later described the Department of Energy under Abraham as being more interested in serving big energy contribute contributors from the oil and coal industry specifically and from the nuclear energy industry then serving the public interest a year after the program kicked off Abraham was quoted saying about it quote employees of the Department of Energy crack

contractors have performed important work for their country even though they may have worked for a government contractor these dedicated individuals are our workers and we are going to take care of them mm-hmm but that did not happen no because he had his fingers crossed behind his back the program has been running for less than three years before the the GAO was called in to investigate the poor handling of claims and resulting reports showed that the Department of Energy's involvement was clearly hindering it out of 24,000 applications to the Department of Energy oh boy only 769 had been processed oh

my god that's 3% of the 769 claims processed only 10 had been paid oh my god well it sounds like the Bush administration for you 10 out of 24,000 perfect the good news is we were able to go into Iraq yeah and allow the allow the the fucking drillers in the Gulf Coast to destroy everything yeah another another let's not interfere with what they're doing and let themselves police themselves yeah well no that's the thing I mean that that's always the best thing it is such a Republican talking point yeah no it's really good just like it's this free market let him do it the Department of Energy's management of the

program was so lackluster that except in a few states it hadn't even determined what state programs to use so that the claimants could get their money okay a representative told the Senate that doing so was not the D Department of Energy's responsibility who I mean I go ahead without a way to pay out the majority of them the GAO found that 50% of claims would go unpaid and that many applicants would die before they would receive money so that's just their own private grim research that's being like we can wait them out they'll die you know that's what they're trying to do right yeah despite the lack of payouts the

Department of Energy still managed to spend 95 million over four years processing the claims good they fucking processed 10 they processed over they process 769 they paid out 10 769 claims led to 95 million dollars so wouldn't it just be easier to give them the money just give them the fucking money no because money left over because all those people needed jobs no good and 2004 the Senate realized that in order to fix these issues instead of trying to reform the Department of Energy it needed to just take the program's responsibilities away subtitle E of the EEOI CPA was created which provided for

up to 250,000 dollars to workers exposed to talking toxins and would be run by the Department of Labor as of 2015 46,158 claims have been approved and almost 3.5 billion have been paid out in total the Department of Labor has provided over 11 billion in compensation and medical bill payments to 105,000 former nuclear workers okay so one one department was doing its job yeah as for Abraham 2004 was also the year he resigned as Secretary of Energy before leaving he managed to get the ball rolling on the mocks plant project in South Carolina when running the plant would turn several tons of weapons grade

plutonium the US still had from 17,000 retired nuclear bombs into reactor fuel for other nuclear facilities the Department of Energy broke ground on the project in 2007 and is still nowhere close to being completed the construction budget balloon from 4.9 billion to 7.7 billion in 2013 and there are predictions it would cost 20 billion among reasons the project is moving so slowly they can't find people to do the work why isn't that weird yeah why it's it's it is strange that if you fuck people over and let them die in horrible ways the other people won't want to do that job weird because it does

attract a position it does it seems like a good good job yeah yeah I don't know why either I might do it it's it's weird that it's weird that someone would be that short-sighted that people are interested in money would be that Dave we both watched the same documentary you can move things with your eyes if this goes wrong Goldie Hahn will be there it's gonna be perfect David Hobson a former Republican congressman who investigated plans for the plant said that the project appeared to be a present in the form of jobs for Bush ally governor Mark Sanford to help him his reelection efforts but Hobson also said

that the plan is supposed to be a big boon for the nuclear industry if it wasn't for the fact that no one wants to buy the fuel they have yet to find any customers yeah especially after the Fukushima nuclear disaster oh by the way which cleanup has just been well it's very very very good they're there they they're they put they put stuff into tanks that immediately start leaking and what I think is great is that what they've done in Japan has actually maybe made us seem a little bit less dumb which is sweet of them as for the company that's building the mox plant Francis Arriva aka the largest nuclear

company in the world Abraham was appointed as the chairman of the board nine is non executive of the American arm of the company just two years after you resigned from the Department of Energy that's good that's good that I was getting worried but that's good to hear fires still break out on the Hanford site that's good the last major one occurred in 1999 ended up burning forty four forty five percent of the nuclear reservation oh cool that's awesome as of 2014 67 of the single-shelled tanks holding tank waste were recorded to have leaked millions of toxic gallons gallons of toxic waste sorry we still have

single-shelled yeah okay good they're still there holding I guess that's the problem with the bottomless pit theory well those are the tanks that you're talking about the milk canisters those are different oh good I don't think those are leaking those are great yeah they have to well well you wouldn't know they were leaking because they're in a bottomless hole yeah that's part of the fun too right we just put it in Earth's mouth put it lower yeah just drop it where it's totally out of mind cool man that's gonna be great so everyone look for the news of a radiation plume hitting the Columbia River and destroying

America's fourth largest river but well Dave we can afford it we don't need water yeah you're right no it's fine we got plenty of water just water it's just water you know and I mean what I want people got through that one that one's a bummer well we're fucked I honestly like yeah we are fucked more and more it's just it's the writing is on the wall yep the the the like two episodes ago vice I mean they're just the polar ice caps and the glacier situation is yeah and like it's it's fucked we'd almost root for nuclear waste to fucking take a step I almost I almost want to be the fucking dude who got embalmed and

just traveled around the country anyway man I'm gonna plug hothead again or yeah I'm doing hot feel good it's about when I get irradiated it's gonna be a good show I feel terrible oh man I'm gonna check Twitter and feel better the guys sent me an email today about this let me see if I can pull it up about what okay so this guy Kevin Jones and Sam just go did all the were you still recording yeah oh sorry I put it down the guy in San Francisco did all the recording of this for me and he I mean did all the research yeah yeah he doesn't do the recording he's from up near there and he said a quick aside my dad told me the

last time we talked that he used to find rocks of yellow cake uranium on the ground outside of one of the research buildings in the 300 area now yellow cake uranium is the stuff we went to war with Iraq over saying that they had yellow cake uranium he used to just see it sitting on the ground you know at some point America should really invade America that's a good end okay bye so Toyota check them out on our vehicles died but the top of the hockey man pack on drum lessons top of my birthday party top of karate appointment so dentist quality means everything to us because

it means everything to you least not in 2023 ref for hybrid le all-wheel drive from 110 weekly for 60 months at 8.59 percent with 3500 down visit shop toyota.ca or your Ontario Toyota dealer today it's time to Toyota