Radioactive hotspots found at former research facility

Los Angeles Times : The Environmental Protection Agency just completed a $41 million survey of a 2850-acre former research facility in California. Now owned by Boeing and NASA, the site may be opened to the public as natural parkland. However, it was once home to 10 nuclear reactors and plutonium- and uranium-carbide fabrication plants. The EPA’s 3-year survey of the area, which collected some 3735 soil and water samples, found that 423 of those samples were contaminated with radiation above background levels. Most of the contaminants were cesium-137 and strontium-90, both highly carcinogenic. The majority of the hotspots were found around the site of a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred in 1959. Boeing and NASA believe that most of the nuclear contamination can be cleaned up over the next five years. However, the facility also was the site of more than 30â000 rocket-engine tests, and the trichloroethylene that was used to wash the engines has been found in aquifers on the site. It is believed that it will take decades to remove that.