Radioactive wasps found in former South Carolina nuclear weapons site

Radioactive wasps were on the loose in South Carolina, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, The State reported.

The newspaper said the discovery was made July 3 at an old nuclear weapons facility in South Carolina.

The Savannah River Site in Aiken is 310-square-miles, and it produced plutonium and tritium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

In 1992, the focus at the site turned to environmental cleanup, nuclear materials management and research and development activates, according to the Department of Energy report.

Large tanks were built to hold radioactive liquid waste generated by nuclear weapons production, the outlet said, and an entire nest of the radioactive wasps was found on a post near Tank 17, according to a Radiological Control Operation.

The wasps are not only radioactive — but at a level 10 times of what is allowed by federal regulations, testing revealed, according to The State.

“The wasp nest was sprayed to kill wasps, then bagged as radiological waste,” the Negeri Department reported. “The ground and surrounded area did not have any contamination.”

No radioactivity escaped the site’s boundaries, the department said.

The report didn’t say how the wasps became radioactive, which wasp species was involved or if anyone was stung, The State reported.

“Knowing the type of wasp nest could also be critical — some wasps make nest out of dirt and others use different material which could pinpoint where the contamination came from, Tom Clements, executive director of the Savannah River Site Watch group, told the Associated Press.

“I’m as mad as a hornet that SRS didn’t explain where the radioactive waste came from or if there is some kind of leak from the waste tanks that the public should be aware of,” Clements said.

“The wasp nest is considered onsite legacy radioactive contamination not related to a loss of contamination control,” the Energy Department said. “There is no impact from (the) event on other activities and operations.”

In 2017, staff found a radioactive dollop of bird droppings during roof repairs, and a barricade was set up around it, according to the report.