Nuclear Weapons Plants Threaten Water Sources, Says Report
Radioactive and toxic byproducts from the 13 nuclear weapons facilities in the U.S. pose a grave danger to several major water sources and tens of thousands of people who rely on them. So says a report released Monday by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, based on a two-year study by a coalition of environmental, health, and safety organizations called the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. The report accuses the Department of Energy of backing away from its commitments to completely clean the sites. Though the DOE has spent some $200 billion to date on cleanups, a toxic soup of contamination still threatens Texas’s Ogallala Aquifer, Tennessee’s Clinch River, Washington’s Columbia River, and other critical water sources around the country, says the report. “It’s time for DOE to obey all environmental laws, clean up its mess, and end plans to generate even more pollution by building new weapons plants,” said alliance director Susan Gordon.
