Oregon Public Broadcasting

The federal government is going to spend an extra 3-million dollars to clean up polluted groundwater heading toward the Columbia River from the Hanford nuclear site.  The money will expand a system to treat groundwater contaminated with “hexavelent chromium.”  It’s a chemical made infamous in the film “Erin Brockovich.”  Carrie Meyer with the U-S Department of Energy says Hanford contractors have been working on the problem for about ten years.  She says chromium concentrations have dropped.

Meyer: "What we’re looking at doing now is taking that pump and treat system and expanding it from 300 gallons per minute to 900 gallons per minute. It’s gonna help us clean it up that much sooner.  And the sooner we get it done the more protective we’re being of the Columbia River."
 
Chromium-laced wastewater was dumped from nuclear reactors into a long trench next to the Columbia River in the 1950s and 60s. That’s when Hanford was producing plutonium for nuclear bombs.  77 square miles at the site have contaminated groundwater.  The total price for Hanford cleanup is estimated at close to 2-billion dollars.