So hazardous and lethal is this nuclear waste that scientists considered everything from shooting the waste into outer space to putting it under the polar ice caps. There is now under investigation the feasibility of dropping canisters of waste into the northern Pacific Ocean, where they would be expected to penetrate a hundred feet [30 m] into the mud below the ocean floor. “We’ve got stuff on this planet that we’re going to have to deal with, either on land, in water or below the waters of the ocean. That’s all we’ve got,” said the vice president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

At one atomic weapons plant, “more than 200 [thousand million] gallons [750 billion L] of hazardous wastes, enough to inundate Manhattan to a depth of 40 feet [12 m], have been poured into unlined pits and lagoons,” wrote U.S.News & World Report of March 1989. “Toxic seepage has contaminated at least 100 square miles [260 sq km] of ground water.

Some holding tanks built to contain nuclear waste became so hot from radioactive heat that they cracked. It is estimated that half a million gallons [2 million L] of radioactive waste has leaked into the ground. Drinking water has been contaminated by radioactive strontium-90 to a level a thousand times the allowable limit for drinking water as set by the Environmental Protection Agency. In another atomic weapons plant, “radioactive substances from waste pits holding 11 million gallons [42 million L] of uranium . . . are leaking into an aquifer and have contaminated wells a half-mile [0.8 km] south of the facility,” reported The New York Times. The paper also reported that in Washington State, thousands of millions of gallons of contaminated water were poured into the ground, and a steady stream of radioactive tritium is flowing into the Columbia River.

In Idaho traces of plutonium have escaped from shallow waste pits at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex, reported The New York Times. “They are moving through rock layers toward a vast underground water reservoir that supplies thousands of southern Idaho residents.” The deadly element has penetrated to a depth of 240 feet [70 m], nearly halfway to the aquifer, the paper said.

How deadly is this plutonium waste that has poured into the rivers and streams and has belched into the air? “Plutonium remains radioactive for 250,000 years,” reported The New York Times, “and even microscopic particles can be lethal if they are inhaled or swallowed.” “Inhaling even a speck of plutonium dust can cause cancer,” said Newsweek magazine.