Buzz Off

Crews to Dig Up Radioactive Wasp Nests at Hanford

By Amy Linn, 6-11-09

	A mud dauber wasp

Sometimes life is like a Bee-horror movie—and, no, that’s not a typo. There’s just a different insect involved.

Workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington this month are going to dig up scores of radioactive wasp nests spread out over six acres, according to Tri-City Herald reporter Annette Cary.
The newspaper says the, ahem, sting operation involves some heavy lifting. “There are so many radioactive nests spread over six acres by H Reactor in northern Hanford that six to 12 inches of top soil are being dug up to remove the nests,” Cary reports.

If the image of glow-in-the-dark wasp nests isn’t enough to give you the willies, consider the “whoops” factor involved:

The nuked nests occurred because of 2003 demolition work on a basin holding irradiated fuel at Hanford, where plutonium was produced for the nation’s nuclear weapons program. Water used during the demo work created mud, which attracted the wasps, who aren’t called mud daubers for nothing (the insects build nests with it). The wasps also enjoyed hiding their nests in straw spread on the ground at the decommissioned plant, the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere, according to the public education group Hanford Watch.

The nuclear reactors at Hanford—a 586-square-mile site along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington—were shut down in the late 1980s. The ongoing environmental cleanup at the facility is the world’s largest, the U.S. Department of Energy says.

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