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[WillyT]

Earliest weapons-grade plutonium found in US dump
by Colin Barras - NewScientist
Updated 17:07 30 January 2009

<snip>

An old glass jar inside a beaten up old safe at the bottom of a waste pit may seem an unlikely place to find a pivotal piece of 20th century history. But that's just where the first bulk batch of weapons-grade plutonium ever made has been found - abandoned at the world's oldest nuclear processing site.


The battered bottle was found inside a
dumped safe at the oldest nuclear processing
site in the world. To see more images, click
the gallery link in the main text, left
(Image: Washington Closure Hanford)

The potentially dangerous find was made at Hanford, Washington State, the site of a nuclear reservation, established in 1943 to support the US's pioneering nuclear weapons program.

Hanford made the plutonium-239 for Trinity, the first ever nuclear weapon test, on 16 July 1945. Just three-and-a-half weeks later, more Hanford plutonium was used in the nuclear strike on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

But sloppy work by the contractors running the site saw all kinds of chemical and radioactive waste indiscriminately buried in pits underground over the 40 years Hanford was operational, earning it the accolade of the dirtiest place on Earth.

<snip>

More: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16447-earliest-weaponsgrade-plutonium-found-in-us-dump.html

Update: Since publication, Jon Schwantes has discovered that a microgram sample of plutonium produced in 1942 by Glen Seaborg's group at the University of California in Berkeley is also plutonium-239. The sample discovered at Hanford is technically the second oldest sample of plutonium-239, but remains the earliest produced during the Manhattan Project and the first bulk batch anywhere.

:kick:

[toddwv]

1. Ah yes, the good ol' days.

If only we can return to those wonder days. If the Dems manage to lose the next election, it might just become a reality.

[suffragette]

2. And Hanford has much more waste there, is in an earthquake zone

and down river from dams.

It also has an active nuclear plant though they take care not to use the word nuclear in its name: Columbia Generating Station.

K&R

[TalkingDog]

3. What? Nobody rushing to tell us that this isn't that bad?

That it's still in the jar after all. and even if it broke, it would just seep into the soil, harmless like....

*sigh* It's lonely in here without the Minimizers....

[nc4bo]

4. It's so old it doesn't even matter anymore....

Old toxic mess, old jar, old safe - just old. Besides, it's lost some of it's radioactivity by now, surely.

It's just old.

[TalkingDog]

5. Ahhh... thank you. much better.

LOL