Radioactive wasp nest found at site where US once made nuclear bombs
ColumbIA, SC (AP) – Once upon a time, the workers in a field that made key pieces for nuclear bombs in the United States found a radioactive wild bee nest, but the authorities said no danger to anyone.
Routinely controlled the radiation levels in the Savannah River near Aiken, employees found a WASP slot near the tanks where liquid nuclear wastes were stored on July 3. a report US Department of Energy.
Authorities said Nest has a 10 -fold radiation level allowed by federal regulations.
The workers sprayed the nest, took out the insect killer, and threw it as a radioactive waste. Authorities, said there is no donkey.
The report said that there is no leakage from waste tanks and that the nest is radioactive with what he calls “old radioactive contamination in -place” from radioactivity.
Watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch, the report is the best missing, because the contamination comes from, how donkeys may encounter, and if there is another radioactive nest if there is a leakage, he said.
Knowing that the type of WASP nest can also be critical – some donkeys nest from dirt, and others use different materials that can detect contamination from where the contamination came from, the general manager of the group Tom Clements wrote in a text message.
I am as angry as a donkey that SRS does not explain where the radioactive wastes come from or whether there is a kind of leakage from the waste tanks that the public should know, C Clements said.
The tank farm is within the boundaries of the site, and the donkey usually flies only a few hundred meters from their nests, so according to a statement from the completion of Savannah River Mission, who controls the site, there is no danger of the facility.
If the donkeys had been found, they would have a significant radiation levels than their nests, Aiken standard.
At the beginning of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, the field was opened in the early 1950s to produce plutonium pits needed to make the nucleus of nuclear bombs. Now the site has changed towards fueling and cleaning for nuclear power plants.
According to the completion of Savannah River Mission, the site produced more than 165 million gallons (625 million liters) nuclear waste and was reduced to approximately 34 million gallons (129 million liters) through evaporation.
Eight is still being closed and 43 underground tanks are used.
