WASHINGTON — Most of the youngest and sturdiest of the giant tanks that the Energy Department uses to store high-level radioactive waste at its Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State show some of the same construction problems as a tank that began leaking in late 2012, according to documents released by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, whose state is across the Columbia River from the site.

The Energy Department is counting on the tanks, built in the 1960s and 1970s, to last for decades more, and has pumped into them thousands of gallons of radioactive liquids scavenged from older tanks that leaked or were at risk of leaking.

Mr. Wyden, a Democrat who is a member of the Senate Energy Committee, pointed out in a letter sent Friday to Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz that at the time of the 2012 leak, the department said, “It seems unlikely that the other double-shell tanks in similar circumstances would have been similarly affected.”

But now, Mr. Wyden said in the letter, it is evident that most have at least some of the same problems. “It is not merely that the design of the tanks and internal components are a problem, but it now appears that the physical integrity of the tanks themselves is compromised,” he wrote, citing Energy Department documents.