Hanford Nuclear Waste Tank Can Keep Leaking For Over A Year, Under Deal

"SPOKANE, Wash. — A new deal allows a radioactive waste storage tank to continue leaking for more than a year before its contents are pumped out at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the nation's most polluted nuclear site.

The deal to pump nuclear waste tank AY-102, announced late Monday, is between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Washington State Department of Ecology. Under the deal, pumping of the double-walled tank would not begin until 2016, and it would take a year to complete.

The deal has outraged critics of Hanford, which for decades made plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons."

Nicholas K. Geranios reports for the Associated Press September 30, 2014.