Maria Cantwell: “They are saying if you put in high-level waste, we cannot tell what will happen to that over a long period of time. That…”

“They are saying if you put in high-level waste, we cannot tell what will happen to that over a long period of time. That is why the decision was made to take it out and put it in a permanent storage facility somewhere else, because these tanks do not have the capacity. The science says that once you do the grouting of this waste, unfortunately, your opportunity to do other things is much more difficult. Once you have poured cement on the ground and solidified it, the process of getting it out and retrieving it is made immensely more difficult. In fact, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in 2004 said: Grouting residual high-level waste in tanks that contain significant quantities of long lived radionuclides . . . Is a policy that poses considerable risk to the long-term health of the water resources in the region. This statement is from 2004. In 2004, people have said this grouting technique, which basically is storing this in the leaking position in underground tanks, is a threat to the water resources of the region. These tanks are not more than 7 miles from the Columbia River, not 7 miles from one of the major water resources of the Pacific Northwest. It already has a plume of nuclear waste that has reached the river. Fortunately, it is at a level that we can contain today but only if we continue to clean up the tanks.”