Nuclear mattersRadioactive rabbit poo found at plutonium production site
A clean-up survey at the Hanford site in Washington State, where military-grade plutonium was produced during the early years of the cold war, discovered radioactive jackrabbit droppings around the site; the rabbits burrowed in the area and discovered the tanks in which nuclear waste is stored; they liked the salty taste of the radioactive cesium and strontium salts, so they began drinking and licking them routinely
They say that only cockroaches would survive a nuclear war, but here is a story that may lead scientists to reconsider this assumption. The latest finding at the Hanford site in Washington State, where the United States produced plutonium in the early stages of the cold war, may remind some of a 1950s sci-fi B-movie. Earlier this year researchers discovered radioactive wasp nests, and the world’s first (more or less) weapons-grade plutonium turned up in a glass jar on a rubbish dump (see 22 January 209 HSNW).
Seattle Post-Dispatch’s John Stang reports that now a helicopter survey has turned up another quirk of ecology: radioactive jackrabbit droppings. The mutagenic poo is the result of liquid wastes from plutonium production. These wastes, which included salts of caesium and strontium, were dumped in underground tanks.
Jackrabbits, burrowing in the area, discovered the tanks. They liked the salty taste of the liquids, so they began drinking and licking them routinely. Subsequently, the digestive process ran its usual course, and the jackrabbits left radioactive scat around the site.
The helicopter survey means that there is a ready-made map of the droppings, which should allow for a faster clean-up.
An estimated 50 million gallons of liquid wastes from cold war plutonium-production processes — laced with radioactive cesium and strontium salts — were dumped in a 13.7-square-mile area south of central Hanford’s 177 underground radioactive waste tanks. That dumping ended more than forty years ago. Similar dumping happened at a two-square-mile site in north-central Hanford.
In late September, a helicopter hovered 50 feet above the Hanford nuclear reservation, methodically hunting almost 16 square miles for radioactive poop that critters with a taste for salt spread. Nevada-based National Security Technologies did the helicopter survey for $300,000 in federal stimulus money sent to Hanford. Before the helicopter flights, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., the company is responsible for much of the environmental cleanup of central Hanford, did tests to ensure the chopper would not stir up and spread contaminated dirt.
