Fears as radioactive wasp nest is discovered at old US nuclear bomb site

A wasp nest with a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by the US was found in a site that once manufactured nuclear bombs.

Workers at the Savannah River Site (SRS) discovered the nest on a post close to tanks holding liquid nuclear waste, while doing a routine check on radiation levels, according to a US Department of Energy report.

‘The wasp nest was sprayed to kill the wasps, then bagged as radiological waste,’ stated the report.

Employees with the Radiological Control Operation team tested the nest and found it probing 100,000 disintegrations per minute/100 square centimeters beta/gamma, which is more than 10 times the amount allowed by federal regulations.

There was no contamination on the ground or areas near the nest, and operations were not impacted at the site, which is near Aiken, South Carolina.

‘The wasp nest is considered an onsite legacy radioactive contamination not related to a loss of contamination control,’ the report read.

It stated that ‘no further action was required in the field’, meaning there is no threat to the workers or public.

The weird discovery was made on July 3 and the report was not filed until July 22. It attributes the delay to time given to review previous wildlife contamination to make sure the reporting criteria was consistent.

But the local the watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch has raised questions, including a lack of information on the contamination source and if there could be another radioactive nest.

‘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,’ said the group’s executive director, Tom Clements. 

Fears remain that some of the wasps could be radioactive themselves, and encounter human beings.

Savannah River Mission Completion, which oversees the site, tried to alleviate concerns by pointing out that the tank farm is within the site and that wasps usually only fly no more than a few hundred feet away from their nests.

Aiken is about 55 miles southwest of the state capital of Columbia.

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