An alarming number of deformed births in Washington State have occurred over the past three years and has CDC (Centers for Disease Control) officials confounded. The CDC published its “Investigation of a Cluster of Neural Tube Defects — Central Washington, 2010–2013” in September 2013. Their final conclusion was no known cause and this assessment set off a volleying of accusations across the Internet of yet another cover-up related to the Hanford nuclear waste site. On August 2012, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) was notified by a health-care provider that the hospital had seen an “excessive number of anencephaly births”. Anencephaly births have a major portion of the baby’s “brain, skull, and scalp that occurs during embryonic development” missing. This results from a “neural tube defect (NTD) that occurs when the rostral (head) end of the neural tube fails to close”. The defect typically happens between the “23rd and 26th day of conception”.





27 Defective Births within Three Counties of Washington State The Washington DOH examined high-risk pregnancies in the central part of the state and surmised that the severe NTDs were within a three-county area. 27 cases of NTD-affect pregnancies were confirmed as occurring from January 2010 to January 2013. –> 23 pregnancies were affected by anencephaly. –> 3 with spina bifida (split spine) incomplete closing of the embryonic neural tube. –> 1 with encephalocele “sac-like protrusions of the brain and the membranes” through openings in the skull. The national rate of anencephaly is 2.1 per 10,000 live births. The tri-county birth anencephaly rate during this period is 8.4 per 10,000 live births. However, the spina bifida for the nation is 3.5 per 10,000 live births, while Washington State during this time period was 1.3 per 10,000. The CDC reported that between January 2010 and January 2013 this particular area in Washington state had four times more pregnancies with anencephaly than what would be expected based on national averages. The CDC stated that it found “no statistically significant differences were identified between cases and controls, and a clear cause of the elevated prevalence of anencephaly was not determined”. It doesn’t require much of a step for many to point fingers at the Hanford Site, especially since the birth mothers are from Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties, which surround the Hanford nuclear waste site. In fact, Hanford Site is located in Benton County.

The Hanford Site The Hanford Site is where the first nuclear bomb was made. It also has a history spanning over six decades of radioactive nuclear waste leaks and intentional nuclear waste dumping into the Columbia River and the atmosphere. Hanford quickly became the nation’s largest environmental cleanup program scheduled for completion in 2040. The site expanded during 1943 to 1946 to include nine nuclear reactors that line the banks of the Columbia River and five plutonium processing “complexes”. The complexes produced most of the plutonium used to create some 60,000+ weapons for the US nuclear arsenal. Except for one commercial nuclear power plant and several R&D (Research and Development) Centers, the Hanford Site is a “mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex”. Water was routinely pumped from the Columbia River for use in dissipating the heat from the reactors of the six nuclear plants before being returned to the Columbia River. This process is common for nuclear power plants, but for decades the water was only held in the retention basins or once-through cooling ponds for 6 hours. “Longer-lived isotopes were not affected by this retention, and several terabecquerels entered the river every day.” As a result, later tests revealed radiation along the Washington and Oregon coastlines. In fact, it was reported that from 1944 to 1971 that several terabecquerels were dumped into the river each day. The site reports that the release of terabecquerels were kept a secret by the government. In addition to water contamination, the site was responsible for air contamination. The separation process of the plutonium released “radioactive isotopes into the air”. This radiation was blown by the wind throughout Washington and into surrounding areas, such as Idaho, Oregon, Montana and even British Columbia. From 1945 to 1951, the air contamination was the heaviest. These radionuclides showed up in the agriculture, fish and livestock. People living in the communities ingested radioactive foods, milk and also airborne contaminates. A heavy release was deliberately conducted and a project called Green Run. Green Run was a “secret US Government release of radioactive fission products on December 2–3, 1949, at the Hanford Site plutonium production facility”. After a 1986 Department of Energy declassification of environmental records, 2,000 Hanford residents living downwind of Hanford Site brought a tort lawsuit.

2013 Discovery of Radioactive Nuclear Waste Tanks Leaking As recently as 2013, radioactive nuclear waste leakage from a holding tank was discovered and announced by Washington Governor Jay Inslee. A few days later, the Governor reported that there were in fact six tanks leaking the radioactive waste but emphasized there was no immediate danger. The Governor said it would be some time before the contamination breached ground water and the Columbia River. The 1940s single walled tanks are decades past their 20-year lifespan and the DOE (Department of Energy) is scrambling to construct new double-walled replacement tanks. After decades of nuclear weapons manufacturing, the area is contaminated with “53 million US gallons (200,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste, an additional 25 million cubic feet (710,000 m3) of solid radioactive waste, 200 square miles (520 km2) of contaminated groundwater beneath the site and occasional discoveries of undocumented contaminations…” Annual reports on the cleanup progress and The Groundwater Remediation Project are available to read online as well as the Hanford Site Environmental reports that began in 1959. The Hanford Site is the most contaminated radioactive nuclear waste site in the US and has leached radioactive nuclear waste into ground water, the Columbia River, the soil and the atmosphere for decades. The 2013 discovery of leaking tanks is the first to be discovered since 2005. It’s not too far a stretch to contemplate the possible health threats to those living within the vicinity of the Hanford Site. Does it seem out of the realm of possibility that the Hanford Site history of radioactive nuclear waste leaks and the latest discovery could be responsible for the birth defects? The Hanford Site is located in one of the counties within the tri-county cluster of reported birth defects. The other two counties border the Hanford Site. The pregnant women who had babies with birth defects that the CDC investigated live within these three counties. Whether or not Hanford Site is responsible for the birth defects, isn’t the Hanford Site history at least news worthy when reporting about such an alarming increase of birth defects?

Image Credits: (1) Great Beyond via Compfight cc

(2) Hanford National Monument

(3) Benton County Map

Originally published on TopSecretWriters.com