US state’s governor says 6 underground tanks at Hanford nuclear reservation leaking

YAKIMA, Wash. – Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee says six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site are leaking.

Inslee made the announcement Friday afternoon after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news “disturbing.”

The tanks already are long past their intended 20-year life span. They hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy said earlier that liquid levels were decreasing in one of the tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels.