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Looks like this risks contaminating the Columbia River which passes through Portland, Oregon. Does Seattle need to be worried? Asking for a friend

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
The Columbia passes north of Portland, and no water from the Columbia should flow down to it (since everything is draining out through the Columbia into the pacific), while Seattle is far enough away that it isn’t an issue. Vancouver WA is the only biggish (but not very big) city down stream from the tri-cities (plus lots of really pretty towns on the gorge). The spill is 1000 feet away from the river so there isn’t any immediate danger yet. They’ll just dig it out probably?
- hinkley 3y ago
  Except of course that everyone in Seattle east salmon and the Columbia is once again a salmon river is it not? Cesium replaces potassium readily, which is part of why the Bikini atoll is still so dangerous. So there’s that.
  - rcme 3y ago
    Isn’t salmon usually caught in the ocean near the river’s mouth? The closer salmon get to spawning, the worse they taste. And it’s hard to get a large ship up the river. This seems like it would be more of an issue for trout fisherman, especially because trout are full time residents of the river.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Salmon aren’t allowed to be caught in the river barring treaty exceptions (so tribes can do it), also grizzly bears will eat salmon going up to spawn, but they aren’t a problem on the Columbia.
      - hinkley 3y ago
        There’s no bears on the upper Columbia? That’s sad.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Lower Columbia. I don’t know about upper, that’s in BC, so there should be a few grizzlies at least. Just not sure if they are on the Columbia or not.
        hinkley 3y ago
        They've found that bears and birds can transport nitrogen from salmon over 100 miles from the river. If they can transport nitrogen that far they can transport cesium.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        But those bears are way way up river of Hanford. Ah, but salmon are swimming the other way to spawn.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      We’re talking about a nuclear waste spill that is still just as dealy 40 years after it happened and none of you think the cesium from early life stages will still be there? Fun fact I just learned: some salmon survive spawning. So a fraction of adult salmon could be re-exposed. Which is probably the more likely vector since childhood exposure is more time for symptoms to catch up with them. We do eat a lot of Atlantic salmon here, it’s true, but we also eat named PNW salmon species like chinook, coho, steelhead trout, and at least some of those are indigenous to the Columbia.
    - seadan83 3y ago
      The real problem with the columbia and salmon is that the columbia is becoming an unviable spawning ground. That entails a full collapse of the species in the region and any other species depending on salmon for food. Doesn't matter where you want to catch salmon if there are none to be caught.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Most of the salmon we eat these days comes from Norway.
  - seadan83 3y ago
    The columbia is a spawning ground, but it is spawning less than 10% what it used to. During the heat dome many salmon were getting burns on their body. The water level is too shallow to keep the water temps down. This is due to damming, irrigation, and water usage. Yakima is home to thousands of green lawns in the middle of the desert thanks to water rates where you can water an acre of lawn for hours a day, every day for super cheap. Meanwhile, the entirety of the Puget sound, the water body right next to seattle has a bunch of salmon (seattle is a port town), rather than the columbia river that is 200 miles away.
notatoad 3y ago
The spill was discovered 13 years ago, and happened even earlier. This is nothing new to be worried about. If anything, be reassured that the cleanup process will happen based on more accurate information that it previously was.
- StanislavPetrov 3y ago
  The spill was discovered 13 years ago, and happened even earlier, so we aren't sure how long this extremely toxic radioactive material (which is so toxic that can kill a person in 2 minutes) has been seeping into the soil and the ground water. Nothing to worry about.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    They're measuring the groundwater and there's no evidence of radiation in it yet. That it's been this way for 13 years means it's not going to suddenly reach groundwater now—it's just that they didn't realize how much there was in the immediate location of the spill.
    - StanislavPetrov 3y ago
      >That it's been this way for 13 years No, the spill was discovered 13 years ago, but it happened even earlier. The article doesn't say when the spill from the 58-year-old building happened, just that it was detected 13 years ago. To me, the fact that an untold number of year passed before this massive, highly radioactive spill was detected, and the further fact that it took them 13 years to figure out how bad the spill was, doesn't inspire confidence that they have a full handle on the situation and have accurately measured just how widespread the contamination is.
      - bandyaboot 3y ago
        The article did indicate that there was work being done in the 80’s during which the floor of a “hot cell” was damaged and allowed the radioactive material to leak out into the soil.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

The Columbia passes north of Portland, and no water from the Columbia should flow down to it (since everything is draining out through the Columbia into the pacific), while Seattle is far enough away that it isn’t an issue. Vancouver WA is the only biggish (but not very big) city down stream from the tri-cities (plus lots of really pretty towns on the gorge). The spill is 1000 feet away from the river so there isn’t any immediate danger yet. They’ll just dig it out probably?

hinkley 3y ago
Except of course that everyone in Seattle east salmon and the Columbia is once again a salmon river is it not? Cesium replaces potassium readily, which is part of why the Bikini atoll is still so dangerous. So there’s that.
- rcme 3y ago
  Isn’t salmon usually caught in the ocean near the river’s mouth? The closer salmon get to spawning, the worse they taste. And it’s hard to get a large ship up the river. This seems like it would be more of an issue for trout fisherman, especially because trout are full time residents of the river.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Salmon aren’t allowed to be caught in the river barring treaty exceptions (so tribes can do it), also grizzly bears will eat salmon going up to spawn, but they aren’t a problem on the Columbia.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      There’s no bears on the upper Columbia? That’s sad.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Lower Columbia. I don’t know about upper, that’s in BC, so there should be a few grizzlies at least. Just not sure if they are on the Columbia or not.
        hinkley 3y ago
        They've found that bears and birds can transport nitrogen from salmon over 100 miles from the river. If they can transport nitrogen that far they can transport cesium.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        But those bears are way way up river of Hanford. Ah, but salmon are swimming the other way to spawn.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    We’re talking about a nuclear waste spill that is still just as dealy 40 years after it happened and none of you think the cesium from early life stages will still be there? Fun fact I just learned: some salmon survive spawning. So a fraction of adult salmon could be re-exposed. Which is probably the more likely vector since childhood exposure is more time for symptoms to catch up with them. We do eat a lot of Atlantic salmon here, it’s true, but we also eat named PNW salmon species like chinook, coho, steelhead trout, and at least some of those are indigenous to the Columbia.
  - seadan83 3y ago
    The real problem with the columbia and salmon is that the columbia is becoming an unviable spawning ground. That entails a full collapse of the species in the region and any other species depending on salmon for food. Doesn't matter where you want to catch salmon if there are none to be caught.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Most of the salmon we eat these days comes from Norway.
- seadan83 3y ago
  The columbia is a spawning ground, but it is spawning less than 10% what it used to. During the heat dome many salmon were getting burns on their body. The water level is too shallow to keep the water temps down. This is due to damming, irrigation, and water usage. Yakima is home to thousands of green lawns in the middle of the desert thanks to water rates where you can water an acre of lawn for hours a day, every day for super cheap. Meanwhile, the entirety of the Puget sound, the water body right next to seattle has a bunch of salmon (seattle is a port town), rather than the columbia river that is 200 miles away.

notatoad 3y ago

The spill was discovered 13 years ago, and happened even earlier. This is nothing new to be worried about. If anything, be reassured that the cleanup process will happen based on more accurate information that it previously was.

StanislavPetrov 3y ago
The spill was discovered 13 years ago, and happened even earlier, so we aren't sure how long this extremely toxic radioactive material (which is so toxic that can kill a person in 2 minutes) has been seeping into the soil and the ground water. Nothing to worry about.
- lolinder 3y ago
  They're measuring the groundwater and there's no evidence of radiation in it yet. That it's been this way for 13 years means it's not going to suddenly reach groundwater now—it's just that they didn't realize how much there was in the immediate location of the spill.
  - StanislavPetrov 3y ago
    >That it's been this way for 13 years No, the spill was discovered 13 years ago, but it happened even earlier. The article doesn't say when the spill from the 58-year-old building happened, just that it was detected 13 years ago. To me, the fact that an untold number of year passed before this massive, highly radioactive spill was detected, and the further fact that it took them 13 years to figure out how bad the spill was, doesn't inspire confidence that they have a full handle on the situation and have accurately measured just how widespread the contamination is.
    - bandyaboot 3y ago
      The article did indicate that there was work being done in the 80’s during which the floor of a “hot cell” was damaged and allowed the radioactive material to leak out into the soil.