HANFORD AND A SINK HOLE

Well, it's time to get something new on this post. My camera got stolen a couple of weeks ago and so I missed out on alot of things. So, to address my blog subject, I'll continue. While I was in Provo, helping out when Ella was born, Bill signed us up for a tour of the Hanford Nuclear Site. We took that tour on Wednesday July 30. For those of you that don't know, it is about 30 miles northeast of us. It was a very informative tour that lasted from 7:30am to 2pm. We have lived in this area 27 years and I never really knew what went on. You'd hear people say all the time that they work at Hanford but I never had a concept of what they did. When a bad snowstorm would hit, they cancel Hanford work for the day. Interesting, I always thought, but now I know why. So..........here is a list of some of the interesting facts I learned. Living near Hanford, you always wonder about the radiation that you would be exposed to. Here's a list that give the expected effect on the average life span of individuals subjected to certain risks. Hope it makes sense.

Risk days of life lost

Smoking (1 pack per day) 3500
15% overweight 777
alcohol consumption 365
construction worker 227
driving a motor vehicle 205
all industry 60
radiation dose of 100mrme/yr (for 70 years) 10
coffee (US average) 6

So no fear of radiation effects now.
They have winds 25 - 40mph almost all the time. They call them termination winds because guys would quit after days of the wind saying they couldn't work in those conditions with the dirt and all. Thus termination winds.

The first reactor was the "B" Reactor. It had over 130,000 workers - - the largest construction site in history. It was mostly 40 - 50 year old men because the younger ones were the engineers and were the bosses. No one off of the site knew what was going on there. The story went that when asked at school what went on at the Hanford plant, a little second grader said they made toilet paper. His father would come home every day with a roll of toilet paper in his lunch box.

They have a landfill they are digging that holds anything contaminated or potentially contaminated. There are 24 trucks making 240 trips/truck/day hauling dirt away from the landfill. It costs $100,000/month for diesel for the trucks. They have backhoes and other earth moving equipment. All equipment that is used for the hazardous waste is buried after the landfill is complete. Nothing contaminated or potentially contaminated leaves Hanford. Unbelievable.

Now A SINK HOLE

I noticed water pooling to the side of our house on Friday afternoon. I went down to check it out and saw the dirt was wet. As I approached it closer to see what was going on, I stepped off of a step and instantly dropped down past my knee into the mud. As I pulled myself out, my sandal came off. I was so taken back that I had to step back and figure out what happened. I decided I was not going to lose my sandal so I found solid ground and reached in to retrieve my sandal. I went past my elbow to find it. I wish I had my camera so I could have taken a picture. I wonder what my neighbors would have thought if they saw me hobbling into the garage with a muddy leg, arm and no sandal. What a sight. We turned the sprinkler system off and today Bill has found the culprit. A cracked pipe. He is now fixing it. So nice to be married to someone who knows. He can figure most things out and what guy doesn't like playing in a little mud?