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实用文档Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over againand expecting different results. Well, thats what critics accuse the U.S. Departmentof Energy of: making the same mistakes over and over in a project that has alreadysquandered billions of dollars in taxpayers money. But the risk here is far greaterthan financial, since it involves highly toxic nuclear waste.At stake are millions of gallons of radioactive liquid waste left over from the makingof nuclear bombs, including the one that was dropped on Nagasaki. This waste hasbeensittinginundergroundtanksinHanford,Wash.,eversince,whilethegovernment tries to figure out how to clean it up. Ascorrespondent Lesley Stahlreports, the waste is so lethal that a small cup of it would kill everyone in a crowdedrestaurant, in minutes.60 MinutesrecentlyvisitedHanford,wherethewitchesbrewis beingstored.Hanford,locatedalongtheColumbiaRiver,is hometothemostcontaminatedpiece of real estate in the world outside of Russia.Itis contaminatedbywasteleftoverfromtheproductionofnuclearweapons.Thereare53milliongallonsofhighlyradioactiveliquidwastestoredinunderground tanks that are now so old they have leaked one million gallons of thestuff.实用文档Some of it leaked into the groundwater, and its heading right for the river. With amillion people downstream, theres a sense of urgency about cleaning up the site,which is huge. It takes up 586 square miles in southeastern Washington.But for the Energy Department, which runs the project, its been a case of easiersaid than done. In the nearly 16 years60 Minuteshas been covering this story, itsbeen one foul up after the next.CharlesAnderson,theEnergyDepartmentsofficialoverseeingnuclearcleanup,gave Stahl a tour of what has been built so far at Hanford, starting with a replica ofthe underground tanks.This is a model of tanks that are already built that have waste in them. Be carefulwith your head here as we go in, Anderson told Stahl during the tour.Thetankcanhold750,000gallonsofwaste.Manyofthetanks,builtfortheManhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapons, are more than 60 years old.Anderson explains there are a total of 177 tanks holding high-level waste at thissite.The plan is to pump the waste out of the tanks and route it through miles of pipestoayet-to-be-completedpre-treatmentfacility.Theideaistoconverttheradioactive waste into glass logs.This is where the radioactive waste will come from the tank farms, will come from.实用文档those tanks and will come in here and be treated in different chemical processesand be turned into glass logs for final disposition to be disposed of in a landfill,Anderson explains.Stahllastvisitedtheareain 2001,whenthesitewasjusta field.Andersonsayssignificant progress has been made. The plants 35 percent complete in regard toconstruction, he says.But the place is a total ghost town. What happened?Whathappenedhereis thatafterthreeyearsofwelding,pouringcementandlaying miles of pipes and tons of steel, construction came to a screeching halt in2005 because the Energy Department underestimated by 40 percent how strongthe building must be to withstand an earthquake. Were talking about a buildingthat would be full of radioactive liquid.In a building like this, you need to build it to ensure that it withstands whatever anearthquake may pose - if there is one - because we absolutely do not want a breechof this radioactive material in the atmosphere, says Gene Aloise of the GovernmentAccountability Office (GAO), Congress investigative arm.Buthereswhat60Minuteshaslearned:thattheEnergyDepartmentandthecontractor,Bechtel,wentaheadwiththeplantknowingtheirseismicstandard.实用文档might be off. Just as construction was about to begin in July 2002, an independentsafety board sent a letter, warning the department.Energy debated with the safety board for almost two years over the standards,says Aloise.Ok, let me understand this. This is brought up as an issue in 2002. Instead of goingbackrightthen,theydebateuntil2005,duringwhichtimetheyrebuildingthebuilding? Stahl asked Aloise.Theyre building the building, he replied.They were building it using the wrong seismic standard. Because they did factor insomemarginofsafety,thecontractor,Bechtel,hastoldtheEnergyDepartmentthere is no restructuring required on the foundation or the walls.But Aloise says what they do have to fix are the internal components of the building.Hangers,piping,vesselsupports,allofthisinteriorofthebuilding,wherethetechnologysgoingtorest.Thatall has tobe re-engineered,he explains.Theyhave to re-do tens of thousands of designs.The seismic miscalculation is costing at least $800 million and a two- to four-yeardelay in completing the building. This practice of pushing ahead with constructionbefore the engineering is complete is known as fast track.The people in the state of Washington who are living with this thing, they dont.实用文档want it to slow down, they want it to speed up, Stahl remarked.But it doesnt work in our view on complex, technical nuclear facilities like the onesin Hanford, Aloise replied.Asked what he would tell the people of Washington, Aloise said, That we need todo it right.Fast track was singled out as a major problem five years ago when60 Minuteslastreported on the cleanup.GaryJones,a GAOinvestigatorin 2001,told60 Minutesthattheyhadrushedahead with construction of this building at a similar site in Idaho before the designswere finished. We asked about it back then.Youre saying they went ahead and built the building and then when they werefinished making all the changes, the equipment wouldnt fit in the building? Stahlasked Jones in the report five years ago.Theequipmentforthisparticularprocesswouldnotfitintothebuildingasdesigned, Jones replied.Fiveyearsago,60Minuteswasassuredthegovernmenthadlearnedfromitsmistakes and things were finally under control. And yet, since then, costs have gonethrough the roof, up more than 150 percent, and the start date for making thoseglasslogshasslippedsevenyears,to2018.Theseismicerrorwasonlyoneof.实用文档several snafus.Tom Carpenter of the watchdog group called Government Accountability Projectgotholdof internalEnergyDepartmentandBechteldocumentswhichrevealaseries of problems with a special tank for processing or scrubbing the nuclear waste.The problems began when Bechtel hired an outside vendor to build it.They gave the wrong design specs to the manufacturer, says Carpenter.Theygave them a less strict nuclear design.According to the documents, when the tank arrived at Hanford it had cracked staywelds. They were fixed. But then different types of weld defects were discovered.And yet Bechtel went ahead and installed the scrubber tank anyway.They still said, We can fix those when the tanks installed. So they went ahead andinstalled it with defects, all right? Carpenter says. Knowing it, okay. So at this pointthey,Bechtel,demandedandthenreceiveda $15millionbonusformeetingamilestone.Bechtel wouldnt give60 Minutesan on-camera interview, but did say that the $15million wasnt a bonus, it was a fee. In any event, after they got the money, a newdeficiency was discovered by independent inspectors for Washington state.This new deficiency, says Carpenter, was discovered after the tank was installed.Carpenter says, The red flag goes up and a full inspection is then ordered on the.实用文档tank. Well, the full inspection shouldve been done at the factory where they builtthe tank.Asked whether this inspection was part of the contract, Carpenter says, Sure.The full inspection finally led Bechtel to realize the tank was not up to specification.But Carpenter says thats not all.The designflawsthat led tothistankbeingdeficientappliedto 66othervessels, Carpenter explains. Seven of which had already been built. And theyhad to go and redesign the ones that had not been built, and fix the ones that hadbeen built. It really raises a big question about, well, what have they not caught outthere? What other equipment or tools, or machine, is installed maybe under feet ofconcrete that these programs failed to catch? Because their programs failed. Thecontractorfailed.TheDepartmentofEnergyfailed.Ittook anindependentinspectortofindnewdeficiencies.Whereistheadultsupervisionhere?Weretalking a nuclear facility handling some of the worst waste in the world, and theyrefast tracking it? Excuse me.60 Minutesasked Charles Anderson of the Department of Energy about this.Whenyouheartheygavethewrongdesignspecifications youalmostcantbelieve it on one piece of equipment, and then when you hear its been repeatedoverandover,Imean,thatdoesntsoundliketheDepartmentofEnergyismanaging the situation very well, Stahl said.实用文档Theresa numberofthoseidentifiedandcorrectedbutwherethespecshavebeencorrectly, Anderson replied.issuesthathaveoccurred.Thoseissueshavebeentheresalsoa large,largepercentageofequipmentcorrectlygiven,theequipmentsbeenpurchasedBut there shouldnt be mistakes like that in a plant like this, should there? Stahlasked.Well, Lesley, in a large complex facility, a project like this, you do have mistakes,he replied.Anderson acknowledged they are big mistakes. I would agree that there are bigmistakes here that we are taking control of and were correcting, he says.You know, Im getting a little deja vu here because when we were here in 2001 itwas the same thing. We figured it out. Its better now. No problem any more. Doyou think, being candid with us, that the departments up to this? Stahl asked.Well heres whats different now. Weve taken steps to provide increased oversight,to reach out for increased external reviews, Anderson replied. To complete thisimportant work of disposing of, stabilizing and then disposing of this waste.Anderson says that the leaking tanks have been stabilized and that theres virtuallyno chance of further seepage. But Christine Gregoire, the governor of WashingtonState, who has worked on this issue from the beginning, doesnt believe that for.实用文档one minute.Letme tell youthestory.1989:Theytoldmetherewas zerochancethattherewouldbe anyleakageandgroundwatercontamination.Sixteenyearslater,wehave confirmed 67 leakers, groundwater contamination. I told them then, Gravityworks like this. And Ill tell them again today: gravity means we are very vulnerableto the groundwater contamination and a plume that we now have moving towardstheColumbiaRiver, whichis thelifelineof our PacificNorthwest,Gov. Gregoiresays.Asked what she meant by a plume, the governor said, Weve got an area that iscontaminatedin thegroundwaterandis migratingtowardstheColumbiaRiver.And if it gets there, Lesley, we have an absolute disaster on our hands.Shes worried about a move in Congress to cut the budget for the Hanford clean-up.I can understand the frustration in Congress, the governor says. Frankly, they areno more frustrated than me. But the last thing we need is to send a message to thiscountry that its OK to walk away. It is not. The chances of a catastrophic event overthere are real. Time is not on our side. We need to get going.Produced By Rich Bonin.
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