Runit Dome - USA radioactive funnel

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

What do you think it is? Maybe a flying saucer has landed? Or has it been dug up since ancient times? You see, over there people are walking along it … Now I will tell you more..

Since World War II, the United States has conducted over 1,000 nuclear tests, mostly at the Nevada Test Site, the Pacific Open Air Display Site in the Marshall Islands, and other locations around the continent. More than 100 of these trials took place in the Pacific Ocean, the Marshall Islands, including Enewetak Atoll.

Enewetok Atoll is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean, located 305 kilometers west of Bikini Atoll. It was the main test bed for nuclear weapons after World War II. Before Enevatak came under the control of the United States, it was under Japanese control. They used the atoll as a stopover for aircraft to refuel. After the capture, Enewatak became the main forward naval base for the US Navy. The island was then evacuated and nuclear tests began.

Between 1948 and 1958, the atoll experienced 43 explosions, including the first hydrogen bomb test in late 1952, as part of Operation Ivy, in which the island of Yelugelab disappeared completely from the face of the earth.

In 1977, a program to decontaminate Enevatak Island began.

In 1980, on Runit Island (Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands), the construction of the Cactus Dome was completed - a sarcophagus over the crater from the test of an eighteen-kiloton bomb, codenamed Cactus, carried out by the Americans on May 5, 1958 during a series of explosions known as Operation Hardtack I. A sarcophagus with a diameter of more than a hundred meters covered the radioactive soil brought into this artificial crater from all over the atoll. Dome diameter - corresponds to the diameter of a cactus funnel

But here's the catch Not far from the sarcophagus, in shallow water, there is a crater from the explosion of another bomb - the forty-kiloton Lacrosse, detonated on May 5, but two years before the Cactus - during Operation Redwing. In theory, the difference in size should be more noticeable, but in reality it is practically invisible and amounts to a little more than 10 meters. There is no deception or arts with Photoshop here. "Lacrosse" turned into dust the reef, the destruction of which went part of the energy, but digging the funnel took the rest.

Over the course of three years, the military mixed more than 85,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil with Portland cement and buried it in a 350 feet wide and 30 feet deep crater at the northern end of the island of Runit Atoll. The final cost of the cleanup project was $ 239 million.

Following the completion of the dome, the United States government declared the southern and western islands in the atoll safe to live in in 1980, and the inhabitants of Enewetki returned home. Today, you can visit the dome with a guided tour.

By the way, about the arts. The guys from Bikini Line decided to turn the Cactus Dome into a huge picture that can be seen from space, and they are recruiting a team. For charitable purposes - helping children affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

But what kind of storage exists in the United States:

Between 1940 and 1941, the US Army purchased 17,000 acres of land in Saint Charles County, outside St. Louis. There were three pretty towns on this territory - Hamburg, Howell and Thunerville. They were immediately evacuated. Hundreds of houses, businesses, churches, schools in the region were or destroyed, within a few months all three cities ceased to exist. A massive factory was established to produce TNT and DNT to supply the Allied forces during World War II. More than 5,000 people were employed. By the time the plant ceased production on August 15, 1945, it had produced over 700 million pounds of TNT.

After the war, the army began to sell off portions of the land. Missouri received 7,000 acres, while the University of Missouri bought another 8,000 acres. These sites are today the Bush and Spring Weldon Memorial Conservation Area. A small piece of land - approximately 2,000 acres - has been conserved by the US Atomic Energy Commission. A uranium ore processing enterprise was established here in 1955.

The reprocessing facility operated until 1966. During the Vietnam War, the army planned to use some of the old uranium preparation facilities to produce Agent Orange, a herbicide that de-foliated the jungle during the war. The Army later abandoned the plan, never producing the chemical at Weldon Spring. The plant had been in disrepair for over 20 years, but still contained contaminated equipment and hazardous chemicals. Waste containers were filled with thousands of gallons of water contaminated with radioactive waste and heavy industrial metals.

Beginning in the 1980s, the US Department of Energy began extensive decontamination of the area, eventually creating a giant waste storage facility to bury waste materials. The official name of this place is WSSRAP.

Completed in 2001, the mountainous structure covers 45 acres and stores 1.5 million cubic yards of hazardous materials. A staircase leads to the top of the cell, where there is an observation platform and memorial plaques providing information about the area and its history. Visitors can also visit a compartment in the building's hull that was once used to test workers for radioactivity. By coincidence, the top of the Weldon Spring container cell turned out to be the highest point in St. Charles County.