Antinuclear

Community groups organise public meetings about Hanford nuclear facility

Environmental groups take control of Hanford nuclear meetings

  http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/sbo/2015/03/environmental-groups-take-control-of-hanford.html19,  Mar 19 2015, Wendy Culverwell Staff Reporter-Portland Business Journal A coalition of Northwest pubic interest groups is organizing a State of the Hanford Site gathering in Vancouver after concluding state and federal agencies had no plans to conduct the annual meetings.

The community-led program will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon March 29 at Vancouver’s Marshall Community Center, 1009 E. McLoughlin Blvd. It is free and open to the public.

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington was conceived as part of the Manhattan project in World War II and produced material for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The government subsequently used the remote desert site to produce material for the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Today, the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site is subject to a decades-long cleanup under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy.

“The health of the Columbia River depends on successful cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site and its dangerous nuclear and chemical pollution. Residents throughout the Pacific Northwest have a huge stake in the cleanup effort at Hanford, and we are reaching out to help give them a greater voice in the process,” said Dan Serres, Conservation Director for Columbia Riverkeeper.

The event is organized by Columbia Riverkeeper, Hanford Challenge, Heart of America and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. It is billed as an opportunity to provide input on the Hanford cleanup and for downstream communities to learn more about the issues.

March 20, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized