Six newly confirmed leaking tanks of radioactive waste was added evidence that even after decades of work and billions of dollars in taxpayer sacrifice, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation’s risks remain unresolved. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/us/struggling-hanford-site-awaits-new-cuts.html?ref=us Plutonium production for the nation’s bomb arsenal was elevated to industrial scale for years in the rolling scrub country of south-central Washington and dangerous industrial pollutants are still getting into the soil only a few miles from the Columbia River. The federal Department of Energy said this week that up to 4,800 workers out of Hanford’s 9,000-person work force, mostly employed by private contractors, could be hit with furloughs or layoffs starting April 1. About 1,200 workers were already laid off from late 2011 to January 2013. “Not only will it slow down this process, which we have been waiting decades to get done, but it will also make it more expensive for the taxpayers in the long run,” Nine nuclear reactors, producing plutonium for bombs — from the one that exploded over Nagasaki in 1945, to the ballistic missile stockpiles of the 1950s through the ’80s — created waste that piled up year upon year to a total of about 56 million gallons’ worth. About one million gallons of that is believed to have leaked over time from 67 of the 149 single-shell storage tanks at the 586-square-mile site.The lead contractor at the plant construction site is Bechtel National. “What you end up with is a system that’s very good at spending money,” And wasting it: On Thursday, a Colorado company called CH2M Hill Hanford Group and its parent company, a contractor in managing the waste tanks, agreed to pay $18.5 million to settle civil and criminal federal allegations of timecard fraud in billing for years of inflated overtime, the Justice Department said.