Radioactive wasp nest found at former US nuclear weapons site

Columbia, South Carolina: Workers at a site in South Carolina where key parts for nuclear bombs in the US were once made have found a radioactive wasp nest, but officials said there was no danger to anyone.

Employees who routinely check radiation levels at the Savannah River Site near Aiken found a wasp nest on July 3 on a post near tanks where liquid nuclear waste is stored, according to a report from the US Department of Energy.

Workers did not find any radioactive wasps.Credit: iStock

The nest had a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by federal regulations, officials said.

The workers sprayed the nest with insect killer, removed it and disposed of it as radioactive waste. No wasps were found, officials said.

The report said there was no leak from the waste tanks, and that the nest was likely to have been radioactive due to “onsite legacy radioactive contamination” from the radioactivity left from when the site was fully operational.

Watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch said the report was at best incomplete since it didn’t detail where the contamination had come from, how the wasps might have encountered it and the possibility that there could be another radioactive nest if there was 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 [Savannah River Site] 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.

The tank farm is well inside the boundaries of the site, and wasps generally fly just a few hundred metres from their nests, so there was no danger they are outside the facility, according to a statement from Savannah River Mission Completion, which now oversees the site.

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If there had been wasps found, they would have significantly lower levels of radiation than their nests, according to the statement, which was given to local newspaper The Aiken Standard.

The site was opened in the early 1950s to manufacture the plutonium pits needed to make the core of nuclear bombs during the start of the Cold War. The site has now shifted towards making fuel for nuclear plants, and clean-up.

The site generated more than 625 million litres of liquid nuclear waste, which has, through evaporation, been reduced to about 129 million litres, according to Savannah River Mission Completion.

There are still 43 of the underground tanks in use. Eight have been closed.

AP

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