"Trouble in the Columbia Riverbed" outlines TRAC’s year 2002 radiological survey of the Hanford Reach riverbed. That survey found that artificial radium-225 (Ra-225) is dissolving into the riverbed water from Hanford Reach sediments. Ra-225 is created by the radioactive decay of artificial uranium-233, a material produced at Hanford during the Cold War and used for battlefield nuclear weapons.

TRAC has identified three separate plumes of Ra-225 in riverbed water, downstream of three barge-and-tug terminals that had supported wartime operations at Hanford. That radiation is increasing. Unless remedial action is taken, the Ra-225 activity will likely increase more than a hundred fold, over the next several thousand years. Unfortunately, there are already early warning signs of biological trouble in the Columbia riverbed.

Soft cover; GBC bound; 43 pages     Order Form

Download a .pdf version of this report here. (1.04 MB)

Hanford Radioactivity in Salmon Spawning Grounds      Published: Aug. 2002     Cost: $10      Order Form

Sixty percent of the Columbia Riverbed where important salmon stocks spawn is contaminated with previously unreported radioactive wastes from Old nuclear weapons production at Hanford Site. This radioactive contamination evidently results from the disposal of solid radioactive waste directly into the Columbia River.

The magnitude of the long-term radiological threat to the salmon stocks remains undetermined.

Public oversight of Hanford needs to be re-invented if management of Hanford Site is to become realistic and clean-up is to become effective and meaningful for the long term.

Soft cover; GBC bound; 66 pages     Order Form