Radiation scare at former plutonium finishing site.
Around 350 Hanford employees were given the all-clear Thursday after taking cover for about three hours when two air monitors went off, signalling radioactive contamination in the air.
Hanford reports the contamination level detected by air monitors was “low.”
The emergency occurred at the demolition site of the most hazardous facility on the 465-square mile Hanford reservation – the plutonium finishing plant. That was the last stop for production during the Cold War, from 1949 to 1989. Inside the building the environment was so lethally radioactive that workers could not enter rooms where work was taking place. Instead they carried out their duties remotely, using what are known as glove boxes, to turn liquid plutonium into button used to fuel nuclear warheads.
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