Air monitors attached to an aging tank known as AY-101 recently found radiation at higher than normal background levels, the agency said.
A video inspection of the underground tank found no evidence that radioactive waste had leaked from the primary tank into the space between the two walls, Hanford officials said. While a new leak is a possibility, they have found no evidence of one.
“We want to discredit that potential before we make any statement,” said Tom Fletcher, the U.S. Department of Energy’s tank farms manager at Hanford.
A Hanford watchdog group on Tuesday contended the higher radiation found by the air monitors was evidence of a leak in a second tank. Hanford Challenge is based in Seattle.
“The presence of these radioactive materials in the outer shell of the tank, known as the annulus, is a solid indicator that the primary shell of the tank has failed and is leaking high-level nuclear waste into the outer shell,” said Mike Geffre, a former Hanford worker now on the board of Hanford Challenge.
Officials for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are trying to determine if a second giant tank containing radioactive waste from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons is leaking
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