Our Northwest Energy

Is Sprawl Good?

You may think you know all there about sprawl but author and historian Robert Bruegmann says that sprawl isn't an American phenomenon, and he challenges the idea that sprawl is bad. He has written a book called Sprawl A Compact History. Professor Bruegmann will be speaking at Washington State Univeristy Tuesday, March 23rd at 7pm in Carpenter Hall. We asked him about his presentation titled, "“Sprawl: Taking a Second Look."

RobertBruegmann

You can hear more from Professor Bruegmann Tuesday at the Pullman WSU campus. For more information visit our arts calender or click Sprawl: Taking a Second Look

Senator Patty Murray Questions Energy Secretary Steven Chu

Democratic Senator Patty Murray had tough words [today] Thursday for federal Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. She's angry over the decision by the Obama Administration to take Nevada's Yucca Mountain off the table as a possible nuclear waste storage site. Murray says that decision could push back cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington. Or she says it could mean Hanford becomes a permanent storage site for dangerous nuclear waste.

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Eugene Residents Weigh in on Hanford Clean Up

The US Department of Energy is planning how and to what extent to clean up Hanford's leaking storage tanks, treat radioactive waste and deal with a contaminated reactor. The current preferred alternatives don't call for a full clean up of the site.

Twenty community members testified. Many, like Marilyn Cohen, also spoke out against having any further waste shipped to Hanford for storage and processing.

“If you can't clean up what you you've got and it's going to be leaching into the water for the next 10,000, 20,000 years, what are we talking about as Americans about putting more into the soil.”

The crowd also voice concerns about the potential for transporting that waste along the highly populated I-5 corridor through Eugene and Springfield. The earliest that could happen is 2022, when a moratorium on further shipments expires.

The DOE cites costs, technological limitations and worker safety as reasons for not doing a complete clean up. [The final public hearing will be held on March 8th in Seattle.]