Leaky Tank at Hanford Nuclear Site Roils Waste Cleanup

A storage tank at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state is leaking as much as 300 gallons of radioactive sludge a year, Governor Jay Inslee said, marking the latest setback in a decades-long clean-up effort.

The leak doesn’t pose an immediate public health risk, Inslee said yesterday in a statement, citing information from the U.S. Energy Department, which owns the facility and is overseeing the clean-up. Still, he said, the release of the hazardous sludge left him “deeply concerned.”