NUKE NEWS
Hanford, WA ‘shooting’ alert was a false alarm, but the panic and anxiety were real
The Tri-City Herald Editorial Board
Wed, March 2, 2022
The Tri-Cities was on high alert Tuesday after reports of possible shots fired at the Hanford site spread a subdued, yet terrible panic throughout the community.
The Tri-City Herald provided updates as frequently as possible while Hanford Patrol and other Tri-City law enforcement officers checked out the possible danger. Fortunately, police officials eventually determined the shooting was a false alarm.
And while Tri-Citians were relieved in the end, the experience still left people shaken.
It was only a few weeks ago when a routine day was shattered by a deadly shooting at the Richland Fred Meyer. The man charged in that case, Aaron C. Kelly, 39, was reportedly spiraling mentally in the weeks and months ahead of the Feb. 7 shooting. He has since been ordered by Benton County Superior Court to undergo a mental health evaluation.
We said at the time of Kelly’s arrest that mental health services in the Tri-Cities are woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the community’s growing population, and that Benton and Franklin counties must assure the public that progress is being made to remedy this deplorable situation.
Last year both the Benton and Franklin county commissions made the smart move to tack on an extra penny to every $10 in sales in order to put money toward a substance abuse recovery center and mental health facility in the Tri-Cities.
As it happens, commissioners on both sides of the river met recently to form a bi-county advisory committee to help direct how to use that extra tax money for mental health and detox services.
The advisory board will include 16 voting members and 7 non-voting members coming from a variety of backgrounds that include law enforcement, mental health officials, substance abuse experts, people with related life experiences and other citizens.
While talks are still underway between Benton County and LifePoint Health to turn the old Kennewick General Hospital building into a safe place for people to go for addiction and mental health treatment, it is encouraging that efforts are moving forward to see what other services might be made available through the new tax.
Several communities have mobile crisis teams that go to people in need of help. Typically, the response team gets referrals from citizens who personally know someone in distress, or who see someone on the street in obvious need of help.
Once crisis team members make contact, they can guide those who are struggling. They can help get them meals, shelter, clothing, medical treatment and other basic needs. The best thing about the service is that people in need can finally get plugged in to the social service network.
This is the kind of service that the Tri-Cities could implement while waiting for the recovery center to be completed. And this is just one example. Once the advisory board gets going, who knows what other creative approaches might be suggested?
The Tri-Cities is the only major metropolitan area in Eastern Washington without a detox center, which means the jails in Benton and Franklin counties often end up being the default location for addicts.
The jails also end up with far too many people who should be in a bed in a mental health facility instead of a cot in a cell.
We hope that Benton County and LifePoint Health, which owns Trios Health in Kennewick and Lourdes Health in Pasco, will be able to come to an agreement soon so the community can get the mental health facility and detox center it so desperately needs.
With the new center and an advisory board guiding the community approach to mental health services, the Tri-Cities will be able to make a huge difference in the lives of many who are suffering.
Adding more treatment options for those living with drug addiction and mental health issues is no guarantee against another random shooting in the Tri-Cities, but it certainly has to help our odds.
County officials are pushing ahead. Now all they need to do is quicken the pace.
Lockdown amid reports of shooting at Washington nuclear facilityThe Tri-City Herald Editorial Board
Wed, March 2, 2022
The Tri-Cities was on high alert Tuesday after reports of possible shots fired at the Hanford site spread a subdued, yet terrible panic throughout the community.
The Tri-City Herald provided updates as frequently as possible while Hanford Patrol and other Tri-City law enforcement officers checked out the possible danger. Fortunately, police officials eventually determined the shooting was a false alarm.
And while Tri-Citians were relieved in the end, the experience still left people shaken.
It was only a few weeks ago when a routine day was shattered by a deadly shooting at the Richland Fred Meyer. The man charged in that case, Aaron C. Kelly, 39, was reportedly spiraling mentally in the weeks and months ahead of the Feb. 7 shooting. He has since been ordered by Benton County Superior Court to undergo a mental health evaluation.
We said at the time of Kelly’s arrest that mental health services in the Tri-Cities are woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the community’s growing population, and that Benton and Franklin counties must assure the public that progress is being made to remedy this deplorable situation.
Last year both the Benton and Franklin county commissions made the smart move to tack on an extra penny to every $10 in sales in order to put money toward a substance abuse recovery center and mental health facility in the Tri-Cities.
As it happens, commissioners on both sides of the river met recently to form a bi-county advisory committee to help direct how to use that extra tax money for mental health and detox services.
The advisory board will include 16 voting members and 7 non-voting members coming from a variety of backgrounds that include law enforcement, mental health officials, substance abuse experts, people with related life experiences and other citizens.
While talks are still underway between Benton County and LifePoint Health to turn the old Kennewick General Hospital building into a safe place for people to go for addiction and mental health treatment, it is encouraging that efforts are moving forward to see what other services might be made available through the new tax.
Several communities have mobile crisis teams that go to people in need of help. Typically, the response team gets referrals from citizens who personally know someone in distress, or who see someone on the street in obvious need of help.
Once crisis team members make contact, they can guide those who are struggling. They can help get them meals, shelter, clothing, medical treatment and other basic needs. The best thing about the service is that people in need can finally get plugged in to the social service network.
This is the kind of service that the Tri-Cities could implement while waiting for the recovery center to be completed. And this is just one example. Once the advisory board gets going, who knows what other creative approaches might be suggested?
The Tri-Cities is the only major metropolitan area in Eastern Washington without a detox center, which means the jails in Benton and Franklin counties often end up being the default location for addicts.
The jails also end up with far too many people who should be in a bed in a mental health facility instead of a cot in a cell.
We hope that Benton County and LifePoint Health, which owns Trios Health in Kennewick and Lourdes Health in Pasco, will be able to come to an agreement soon so the community can get the mental health facility and detox center it so desperately needs.
With the new center and an advisory board guiding the community approach to mental health services, the Tri-Cities will be able to make a huge difference in the lives of many who are suffering.
Adding more treatment options for those living with drug addiction and mental health issues is no guarantee against another random shooting in the Tri-Cities, but it certainly has to help our odds.
County officials are pushing ahead. Now all they need to do is quicken the pace.
Josh Marcus
Tue, March 1, 2022
(Getty Images)
Employees are on lockdown at the Hanford nuclear site in eastern Washington state, where police were called on Tuesday after reports of an active shooter with a shotgun.
Officials have not confirmed whether a shooting did indeed take place, or if anyone was harmed.
“Hanford Patrol continues to search the 2750 E Building,” officials from the Hanford site said in a news release, referring to one of the buildings on the property. “They have not found any evidence of shots fired, and have not found any injured employees.”
The Benton County Sheriff’s Office reported similar findings.
“Law enforcement has searched the building,” they wrote on Facebook. “They have not located any victims inside the building or any evidence at this time of shots being fired. Law enforcement will be conducting additional searches of the building.”
Sheriff Tom Croskrey told reporters on Tuesday that officials are moving to deescalate the police posture at the scene.
Police have recovered a gun from a car at the facility, though it is unclear if the weapon is related to the potential shooting.
Employees received an emergency text message alert after the shooting was called into police.
“Affected employees prepare to run fight hide,” the message read, local news outlet KAPP-KVEW reports. “Employees in nearby buildings are to lockdown and prepare to run fight hide. All others stay away.”
Police officers from the Hanford Patrol, Benton County Sheriff’s Department, as well as the Richland and Kennewick police departments, are on the scene, searching through buildings for the potential shooter.
The site, which used to produce plutonium for US nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Protect, has been decommissioned since the Cold War, and now houses nuclear waste.
Access to the area requires passing through a security checkpoint with an ID badge.
The facilities at Hanford have been undergoing one of the longest-running nuclear cleanup efforts in the world.
The Independent has contacted local police for further information.
What is the Hanford nuclear reservation? Where is it? Here’s what you need to know
Cameron Probert
Tue, March 1, 2022
The 580-square-mile Hanford site is the nation’s largest nuclear waste cleanup project after producing two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for its nuclear weapons program.
The site in Eastern Washington was created as part of the Manhattan Project, and produced the plutonium that fueled the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II.
Then as the Cold War started, it ramped up production again, producing plutonium through 1987.
Hanford made more than 20 million pieces of uranium metal fuel that were irradiated to produce plutonium at nine nuclear reactors along the Columbia River.
Massive plants in the center of the Hanford Site processed 110,000 tons of fuel to chemically separate out plutonium.
The processing left 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste that remain stored in underground tanks, many of them prone to leaking.
As the Cold War drew to a close, so did production at the site. The final reactor stopped production in 1987.
Then two years later the U.S. Department of Energy started an environmental clean up effort that is expected to continue for decades to come. The remaining weapons grade plutonium has been shipped off site.
Currently, about $2.5 billion a year is spent on maintaining the site and cleanup work.
An overview of the Handford’s 200 areas is illustrated in this Oregon Department of Energy map.
The site is located north and west of Richland, and covers an area that is about half the size of Rhode Island. Most of it is located in Benton County.
The workforce numbers 11,000 people, most of those working for contractors under the federal agency. It is the largest employer in the Tri-Cities, and has its own security and fire departments.
The Northwest’s only commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, operates on leased land at the nuclear reservation but is unrelated to the weapons work and cleanup at the site.
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