This is from the Tri-City Herald in Washington State. A radioactive rabbit was caught near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a cold-war nuclear weapons site during the Cold War, and now America’s largest nuclear waste depository.
Several rabbits have been trapped since then and one of them was found to be highly contaminated internally with radioactive cesium, Fordham said.
In Hanford’s earlier years, contaminated animals were more common.
Liquid waste with radioactive salts was discharged into the ground near central Hanford during the Cold War. Rabbits and other animals were attracted to the salts and spread radioactive droppings across as much as 13.7 square miles of sage-covered land before the waste sites were sealed to keep out animals in 1969.
Federal economic stimulus money has been used to survey for the radioactive hot spots that remain four decades later.
In a more recent case, so many radioactive wasp nests were found spread across six acres by H Reactor in northern Hanford that up to a foot of soil was dug up to remove the nests.
Radioactive waste never goes away, it concentrates up the food chain.
This is a legacy of the Manhattan Projectand the endless global war, cold and hot.
There’s no Manhattan Project for energy independence. There’s a political inertia in favor of big, centralized energy. We hear politicians moaning about the national debt, which is certainly a problem, but not the only one we face.
We are still creating nuclear waste, leaving the cleanup for future generations. It’s not the only environmental mess left over from the 20th century. It is a uniquely unforgiving substance, that seeps out of containers, pollutes water and concentrates in animals and people. A heck of a way to boil water.
In related news, this month’s election may give a boost to wind power—
In Rhode Island, the only candidate for attorney general who said he would drop an appeal against the state’s approval of an eight-turbine farm off Block Island won election by a wide margin. Democrat Peter Kilmartin has publicly voiced his support for the project — which is being developed by Deepwater Wind — and has said he would abandon the current appeal of the project’s electricity prices which is currently before state Supreme Court.
You know, they wanted to build a nuclear power plant in Charlestown
but the locals objected and the site is a wildlife refuge today. The Manhattan Project cost billions– spent under the pressure of war. The American people really do want to declare our independence from foreign oil, and do it without mortgaging our children’s future to pollution and short-sighted investment in a technology that belongs to the past.
Recurring Nightmare 
No carbon-no nuclear-what’s your solution?
I am sure you don’t want to read to the light of whale oil.
You constantly complain,but have yet to suggest an alternative that works.
Meanwhile China,Russia,Indonesia,Brazil,Madagascar’and many sub-Sharan natuons in Africa are just blithely creating air and water pollution and destroying rain forests.
Yet you seem to hold special venom for this country on the issue.Why?
Many of your liberal heroes are thw worst form of energy pigs.
Does Lincoln Chafee really need 11 vehicles?
It’s not like he’s a collector.
Al Gore and his planes and oil profits from Occidental is another beauty.
But you seem to hold these hypocrites in hushed reverence.
Why don’t we destroy the coal industry like Obama wants?If that happens,millions will be financially devastated.
He can gobble arugula while children in West Virginia and Kentucky go without,but those people don’t count in his world.
Please,build a windmill in your yard and put some panels on your roof and just swear off National Grid.Get rid of your car too.
I know I’m being ridiculous,but I hope you see the point-we don’t have a better alternative.
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We have many better alternatives, starting with more intelligent use of the energy we are using now.
I’ll tell you what, I’m pledging to call the State House and ask them why they keep the heat cranking in the winter with people opening the windows like I saw the last time I went to testify for a bill.
I’d love to make my house more energy efficient. Right now it’s plastic on the windows– if my second job works out I’ll replace the windows.
Conservation is only part of the solution– but it needs to be discussed because it’s not politically correct to use the ‘c’ word. Look what happened to Jimmy Carter when he tried to warn us about foreign oil.
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Plus one to you about the high heat and open windows!!I’m not always negative.
At home we keep it at 64 during the day in winter and 56 at night.Wool blankets are energy efficient!!You don’t even have to harm the sheep.
I have seen similar behavior you described in public housing where residents don’t pay utilities.
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Yes, I’ve seen that too. I’ve even heard elderly tenants complain that they can’t get the thermostat to work, though mostly they keep the windows closed all winter.
‘Smart’ technology is so cheap and available that a small investment in better heat use would pay off fast.
Time to put some plastic on my 1918 windows, the cheesy plastic replacements will be installed next year I hope.
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Sealing your house isn’t all that healthy.
I have steam heat,which isn’t bad,but you can’t zone it so-ka-ching,ka-ching.
The hiss and pipes clanking are nice reminders of my youth when we had coal-steam.Coal smoke a on a cold,clear winter’s day was a nice smell,almost as good as chcken soup.
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Of course that could account for my smoker’s cough even though I’m a non smoker.
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