Radioactive Rabbit Poop Part Of Hanford Nuclear Reservation Cleanup (VIDEO)

The Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state produced most of the plutonium our nation used from the the beginning of the atomic bomb through the 1980s. As one can imagine, this production also led to massive amounts of toxic waste. However, one of its sources is not part of the usual suspects.

The area is the focus of the largest environmental cleanup operation in the country right now, and that includes scrubbing all the rabbit feces because it is radioactive. The jackrabbits have taken quite a liking to the nuclear sludge, which contains a radioactive salt that they can't get enough of. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,

Jackrabbits routinely burrowed into those sites. They found the salt, liked it, and licked it. Later, they pooped it, leaving slightly radioactive scat all over the ground.

Check out Rachel Maddow's segment below for more information on this operation, and the radioactive rabbits.

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Comments

[liberalOrgonian]

how about the poor suckers who eat these rabbits.

[liberalOrgonian]

Maybe some day we will not need lighting, we will all glow nuclear .
The waste is in the environment, we can't truly get it out. As noted below everything that eats rabbits, also eat radio active waste. We have taken a lot of pride in poisoning our planet.

We need the green revolution to begin. Before we all end up glowing cancers.
Solar and wind power now!

[liberalOrgonian]

It scares me to think we will be building more nuclear plants. We do not even know how to contain the radio active debris we created years ago. Many who live near Hanford have health problems. We need to think green so no more rabbits or people don't poop radioactive droppings.

I heard years ago this debris was being used in fertilizer as an inert element.
Spread all over field where our food is grown (just lost my appetite).
Until we know how to safely depose of the stuff, It should not be used as energy.

Three mile island should have cured us of Nuclear.

[research]

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When instead of deadly expensive fascism requiring insane nuke power we can get:

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For the rest of our fuels and energy, we can take the messes we make and convert them into Fuels.

BioChar of organic wastes: wood, paper, sewage, plants, plastics can all be converted into electricity, heat, fuels and carbon negative charcoal fertilizer.

rooftop Solar and Waste BioFUels can provide all the energy and fuel the world needs:

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[BlackYowe]

Great and if there are radioactive jack rabbit there are radioactive hawks, coyotes and owls too.

[rblackbird]

Ah, the irony.....

Rachel reveals the continuing contamination left over from the nuclear bomb plants. She also points out our lack of any safe, permanent storage facilities for nuclear waste, which is a major problem for the commercial nuclear power industry.

Yet, Ms. Maddow routinely decries global warming, and condemns the use of fossil fuels for energy.
A leading alternative to such energy sources? Nuclear power, of course!

Those of us who opposed the expansion of commercial nuclear power in the last decades of the prior century knew the plants were dangerous. More importantly, even as plant safety supposedly increased, no permanent disposal site for nuclear waste, military and commercial, was ever built. The fear of leaks from underground storage has stopped any construction. Instead, we are left with dozens of large surface storage ponds that must be monitored and maintained for centuries to forestall explosions of used fuel rods. Increasing nuclear waste in America will be seen as a great environmental policy, because it will help solve global warming which is imminent, as we are told.

[BlackbirdHighway]

And if the waste problem were properly addressed, a lot more people would be willing to support nuclear was a tool in reducing CO2 emissions. I'm against nuclear mostly because it is incredibly expensive, and there are so many cheaper alternatives available.

[Charlie King]

I'm not sure her stances are remotely as contradictory (or ironic) as you make them out to be. Most people who are pushing for clean energy are looking for just that - CLEAN energy. It is totally possible (and even likely, based on the demographic of people who support clean energy initiatives) for a person to be BOTH anti-nuclear energy AND anti-fossil fuel energy.

Additionally, the ONLY nuclear project I have ever heard touted as "Clean" is the nuclear FUSION project in the UK (and nuclear fusion would, in fact, be a clean energy source - a very energy produced from an abundant renewable resource with little or no waste or by-product and nothing radioactive). Considering that, I hardly think it's realistic to claim that increased nuclear waste is a by-product of the clean energy movement.

[rblackbird]

You missed the point.

The clean energy movement is aimed at reducing co2 emissions. It is not pursued to remove noxious carcinogens and chemicals from the atmosphere which destroy plant life and cause human ills. For decades, environmentalists have been fighting for and obtaining laws designed to reduce emissions of harmful gasses. The technology already exists and is employed.

The perceived need to eliminate fossil fuels altogether, however, is avoid global warming. The only way to completely eliminate fossil fuels is to substituted nuclear energy. Nuclear energy has a far greater likelihood of destroying human life than does co2. That is the irony. We are bringing back the specter of nuclear power, with known problems for the environment, to avoid global warming which is speculative at best. As hard as the warmists chant about scientific consensus, and the science is "settled," the hypothesis has not been proven, and continuing scientific investigation casts greater doubt on the whole idea.

[LightningJoe]

Why am I not surprised that Hanford has "buried piles" of radioactive waste sitting where they can be dug up by jackrabbits?

Eastern Washington is just soooo proud, to be host to such a job-giving and filthy industry.

[rblackbird]

Jack rabbits don't dig.

[PandJonB]

WOW. Wonder if it glows in the dark.

[RefreshingTaste]

I work at a radioactive contaminated site, the site is secured and controls are in place to make sure nothing contaminated leaves, but I constantly see the paw prints of someone's house cat crossing the site, being contaminated then heading back home to its unsuspecting owner.

[WilliamL]

The waste generated by nuclear facilities need to be stored in the same location/state.

Those who "benefit" from the energy sd. have the threat of radiation hanging on their own heads and not those on the other side of the country.

[WilliamL]

The interesting thing about Hanford is the decision of the DOD to place it so near the Columbia River/Pacific. For years, decades, concerns over leakage into the Columbia/Pacific has been a reality.

For all the joys and supporters of nuclear energy, that little thing with the waste produced is simply something those who bang the drum for more reactors just do not want to admit to or even think about.

Glowing Bunny Poo might lead some to understand the possibility of radiated Salmon and the rest of the ocean.

[graffitijoe]

So don't eat it!

[1murillo]

This is an important example of a way toxic wastes are sometimes spread.

[jennylynn]

What a desparate and pathetic topic. Poor girl. She is fading faster every day.

[balloonloon]

Not for those of us w/ migrant jackrabbit (from WA) infestation
problems. Stuff truly glows in the dark--just given ya a heads up...

[LightningJoe]

What a desperate and pathetic comment.

[VivamusAmemus]

You of all people should know about poop, considering it falls out of your mouth every day...

[gjohnthehorrible]

Maddow, Olbermann, Ru$h, H@nnity etc are all $h/t