On Friday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee made the “disturbing” announcement on the nuclear reservation, which is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States.
“I think that we are going to have a course of new action and that will be vigorously pursued in the next several weeks,” Inslee said.
Last week, reports indicated that one of the 177 tanks at the south-central Washington site was leaking liquids in the range of 150 to 300 gallons a year, posing a risk to groundwater and rivers.
The US Department of Energy also said that liquid levels are diminishing in the six underground containers.
The leakage has increased concerns regarding the reliability of similar containers at Hanford, which have long passed their 20-year life span.
Hanford has the highest level of radioactive waste of any site in the United States. It produced plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.
The containers hold millions of gallons of highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear arms.
One million gallons (4,000 cubic meters) of highly radioactive waste from Hanford is currently traveling through the groundwater toward the Columbia River and will reach the river in 12 to 50 years if the cleanup operation is delayed, according to Hanford Quick Facts, published by the Washington Department of Ecology.