Nuclear waste ravaged their land. The Yakama Nation is on a quest to rescue it

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/20/yakama-nation-nuclear-waste-cleanup

Nuclear waste ravaged their land. The Yakama Nation is on a quest to rescue it

A generation after it was decommissioned, tribal members are still working to clean up the Hanford nuclear site, one of the most contaminated spots in the US

by Hallie Golden

More than 500 sq miles large and ringed by rocky mountains, the decommissioned nuclear production site is considered one of the most contaminated places in North America.

It also sits on the ancestral lands of the Yakama Nation and other Indigenous peoples in Washington state. Here, precious wildlife, vision quest sites and burial grounds lie side-by-side with signs reading “warning hazardous area” and towering nuclear reactors, some of which date back to the second world war.

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During its lifespan, hundreds of billions of gallons of liquid waste were dumped in underground storage tanks or simply straight into the ground. After the site’s nine nuclear reactors were shut down by 1987, about 56m gallons of radioactive waste were left behind in 177 large underground tanks – two of which are currently leaking – alongside a deeply scarred landscape.

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In the past decade, it was also discovered that hundreds of gallons of highly radioactive waste have been leaking from two Hanford tanks, threatening the Columbia River.

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