Hanford probes possible leak

Radioactive material has been found between the inner and outer walls of an underground double-shell tank at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Hanford has 28 double-shell tanks that are being used to hold radioactive waste emptied from Hanford’s leak-prone single-shell tanks until up to 56 million gallons of the waste can be treated for disposal.

The Department of Energy is investigating.

“These tanks were supposed to last another 40 years, but that thinking has been superseded by this new reality,” said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge.