America's Atomic Time Bomb

The disaster at Fukushima has raised questions around the world about nuclear safety. But contamination is much worse in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.  The nuclear catastrophe unfolding in faraway Fukushima has led many to raise questions about the safety of America's nuclear reactors. But one of the gravest threats lurks deep in the ground at Hanford, one of the final stubborn relics of the Cold War. Even more worrisome is the fact that an active nuclear power plant -- the only one in the earthquake-prone Pacific Northwest -- sits on the edge of the polluted site. The former plutonium plant in Hanford, Washington is one of the most contaminated places on earth, and still decades from being cleaned up. Hanford is America's original atomic sin. At this giant facility sprawled over 586 square miles (1,517 square kilometers), a four-hour drive southeast of Seattle into the vast emptiness of Eastern Washington, the United States once produced most of its nuclear raw materials for the Cold War. Though it was decommissioned in 1988, it remains the most contaminated location in the entire Western Hemisphere. The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently revised its timetable for Hanford's decontamination, the biggest environmental cleanup in American history. The end date was moved back, once again. It now hopes to finally wrap up this Herculean task by September 2052 -- more than 108 years after Hanford was opened.

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