nuclear-news

Spread of radioactive particles from old nuclear sites

How Tumbleweeds Spread Radiation From Old Nuclear Sites Gizmodo, 29 Jan 14“……shows just how persistent the damn weed is. A note on terminology here: “tumbleweed” can refer to any number of plants that break free of their roots and tumble around spreading their seeds, but the most common one is the Russian thistle, also known by its scientific name Salsola tragus.

During the early 1960s, after aboveground nuclear testing finally ceased at the Nevada Test Site, the first thing said to grow back was Russian thistle.Radioactive Salsola has come tumbling out of the old Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, where plutonium was manufactured during the Cold War. I half expect to hear someday that Russian thistle has been found on the moon.

The Hanford site in Washington state, which is the most contaminated nuclear site in the U.S., has recently encountered trouble with leaking waste tanks. What intrigues me is that the containment problems at Hanford have also long been compounded by what one internal presentation calls “biological vectors,” aka tumbleweeds but also fruit flies, mud dauber wasps, pigeons, swallows, mice, and rabbits, species on the loose potentially spreading radiation beyond the site. Hanford even has a whole Biological Control program to deal with these vectors. http://gizmodo.com/how-tumbleweeds-spread-radiation-from-old-nuclear-sites-1508617887

January 29, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized