(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Radioactive wasp nest found at old nuclear bomb material factory [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-07-31

The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site used to make bombs for America's nuclear arsenal. Now there's a radioactive wasp nest there. A report from the agency described its discovery and destruction, but remains alarmingly light on further detail.

Radiological Control Operation (RCO)discovered a wasp nest on a stanchion near 241-127F (adjacent to Tank 17) in a Controlled Area. The wasp nest was sprayed to kill the wasps. RCO probed the nest and discovered it was probing 100,000 dpm/100 cm2 beta/gamma. This contamination level is greater than 10 times the total contamination values in 10 CFR 835 Appendix D. The wasp nest is considered onsite legacy radioactive contamination not related to a loss of contamination control. The delay in reporting was to allow time for reviewing previous wildlife contamination for consistency in reporting criteria. … The wasp nest was sprayed to kill wasps, then bagged as radiological waste. The ground and surrounded area did not have any contamination.

"No further action required in the field," the report concluded. The question poses itself: if nuclear waste is being properly stored, why are there radioactive wasps there?



The watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch said the report was at best incomplete since it doesn't detail where the contamination came from, how the wasps might have encountered it and the possibility that there could be another radioactive nest if there is a leak somewhere. Knowing the type of wasp nest could also be critical — some wasps make nests out of dirt and others use different materials, which could pinpoint where the contamination came from, Tom Clements, executive director of the group, wrote in a text message. "I'm as mad as a hornet that SRS didn't explain where the radioactive waste came from or if there is some kind of leak from the waste tanks that the public should be aware of," Clements said.

According to the Savannah River Mission Completion, the site generated 165m gallons of liquid nuclear waste, evaporated down to 34m gallons since, held in 43 underground tanks there.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/07/31/radioactive-wasp-nest-found-at-old-nuclear-bomb-material-factory.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.