The+EPA's+New+Environmental+Justice+Adviser+has+a+Plutonium+Problem

Article: [] The New Republic Published 3/8/2018 Accessed 3/8/2018
 * The EPA's New Environmental Justice Adviser has a Plutonium Problem **

image source: Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

The relatively new Environmental Justice adviser for the EPA, Scott Pruitt, recently attracted some controversy when it was discovered that one of the people he had appointed to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council might have been involved in a deadly leak of Plutonium gas. The appointee in question is named Michael Tilchin, and he is the vice president of a company called CH2M Hill. Three separate releases of contaminated material occurred at Hanford site, a former nuclear weapons facility.The first release was small, but the second release occurred when workers tried to demolish the Plutonium Finishing Plant, considered to be the most dangerous spot at Hanford. 300 workers were told to take cover, and later 31 of them tested positive for contamination. In the third release, 11 workers were exposed and there were even plutonium readings captured at an employee exit near a major highway. While it is currently unclear who to blame for this, the fact that a top executive in the company responsible is advising the new Environmental Justice Adviser has clearly created some controversy.
 * SUMMARY:**

This article relates immensely not just to the class, but also to the our current unit. Our book talks extensively about nuclear waste and its potential dangers. While the article does not directly state this, the phraseology used is enough to hint that some of this Plutonium could probably be classified as high-level radioactive waste. Currently, according to our textbook, the best way of disposing of this kind of waste is by burying it deep underground, but no one has built any containment system worthy (Page 388). This former nuclear facility is not a unique case. According to our textbook, there are as many as 45,000 radioactive sites in the United States alone (Page 389).
 * RELEVANCE TO COURSE:**

I think that this is a shameful incident that shows the dangers of nuclear waste. In the three leakages of Plutonium into the environment, 42 employees were exposed, along with many of their clothing items. These incidences also affected some of the vegetation around the facility, and even got close to a major highway. To me, this is unacceptable. I think that both the CH2M Hill team managing the demolition project and the government are ultimately responsible for this. The government gave them too much of an incentive to work quickly, and the managers were all too willing to try to jump for that incentive.
 * OPINION:**

This article relates to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, which calls for the construction of a facility for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel. This law will not be invoked against CH2M because it does not deal so much with demolition of facilities, but rather is concerned with building a repository for storing the nuclear waste embedded in deep geologic formation (which still has not happened yet). I think that the dangers of nuclear waste which have been highlighted by these incidences create a really good reason for this law to finally be fulfilled by the Department of Energy actually building the repository.
 * LAW:**