The Nation - News from Jan. 7, 1987

The Hanford nuclear reservation’s N Reactor is being shut down today for at least six months for extensive safety modifications. Although the Department of Energy has known for more than three months that improvements were needed, plans for making the Richland, Wash., facility safer have yet to be drawn. The $50 million in proposed safety modifications will not address the reactor’s lack of a radiation containment system, nor will they touch on the possibility of a potentially explosive buildup of hydrogen during an accident, the Energy Department said. The N Reactor is the only U.S. reactor with design features similar to the Soviet reactor at Chernobyl that was destroyed by explosion and fire April 26, 1986.