Beautiful nuclear waste

I took Tai to see the Columbia River Gorge today. It was a lovely gray, slightly rainy, moody-sky day, as most days are here in the winter. The river is majestic, the cliffs on either side are beautiful beyond description, and the river is, according to Dr. Helen Caldicott, "the most dangerously polluted river in the world." Last year Occupy Portland invited Dr. Caldicott to talk about the Hanford Nuclear Facility, which is located by the river and which is the storage site for enough nuclear waste to destroy the world. There's a nine-minute Youtube of that event here.

When Dr. Caldicott spoke last year, only one or two of the many tanks of nuclear waste were leaking into the Columbia River. Now there are six tanks leaking, six that we know about definitely. People who care about this, like Physicians for Social Responsibility and others, are still trying to raise awareness of the very great danger to the whole region from the toxins seeping into the river.

But it is beautiful. No question about that.

P.S. For scale. The small dome on top of the dark cliff to the right is Vista House.