More than two-thirds of the 144 sites related to nuclear weapons production in the U.S. will never be clean enough to allow for unrestricted public use, according to a report conducted by the National Research Council at the request of the Department of Energy. The report also found that the government’s long-term management plans for the sites are inadequate and that the DOE should assume that most of its efforts to contain radioactive waste “will eventually fail.” The report went on to say that the government lacks the money, technology, and management techniques to prevent radioactivity from spreading outside plant boundaries, as in the case of groundwater contamination. Sites covered in the report range from small mounds of uranium mine tailing in remote areas to portions of federal research labs to massive facilities like the Hanford reservation in Washington state.
